That is a good one to remember.
I think that it kind of illustrates the mentality of a lot of generally rational people during the boom (and a long time before).
The assumption was that home prices increase at a rate faster than the cpi and would for the foreseeable future.
There was also the fear that if one did not join jump on the train now, they might be priced out forever.
When challenged on the viability of future effective demand, many folks considered intelligent would point to Japan’s 50 and 100 year mortgages as an example of potential future lending innovation.
This was not necessarily a dumb position to take either.
Intelligent journalists (eg: Tanta) would point to prewar mortgages (when the max loan to value was 40-50%)as an example of how innovation could be progressive and beneficial.
Of course this forgot the obvious:
-that these examples were cherry picked to illustrate deviant results
-that outside of real estate circles, Japan’s financial innovations were seen as a poor example of risk management (perhaps “disastrous” would be a better word)
-that inflationary pressure can’t be contained to a single consumer good (nor deflation)
-that buying something for twice the cost of renting it just because you think it will shoot up in value is, by definition, purely speculative
-that listening to good news from people who have a financial interest in puffing the news is a bad idea
-that the US (prior to 1920) has a very well documented history of credit crunch following a period of loose lending
My point is that hindsight is 20/20 and it is important to remember what some of us had to learn the hard way.
