Not really, especially from a legal standpoint (not a lawyer!). > The homebuyer always wanted this. The difference is that during this time, they were given th

Not really, especially from a legal standpoint (not a lawyer!). > The homebuyer always wanted this. The difference is that during this time, they were given this, and allowed to leverage the value of a piece of property that would always rise and never fall in value in order to pay for it. Why was this? I'd argue that it's because the whole system wanted that to be true: politicians wanted people to be buying bigger and nicer houses. People wanted access to a nicer house than they can technically afford. Companies wanted to push mortgages out, then slice them up to try to minimize risk. The entire system from top to bottom wanted this. > Everybody who saw that the housing bubble was stupid, and made money from it anyway by selling it as sustainable. Just like the dot-com bubble, it's really who got left holding the bag. Many, many people made money off of it. Many middle class families also! People who sold a house when home prices were soaring. People who locked in low rates. Everyone knew that the home market wasn't going to grow forever, it was just a gamble as to how quickly the growth would slow, and how wide-spread defaults would be.