I do a lot of reading on different subjects, but recently the topics in our business revolve around credit. Credit used to mean that you could have the peace of mind that if you did not have enough cash on you, you could charge it on your charge card! Think of it this way it was like a AAA card or an emergency cash fund!
When my husband and I bought our first home in the 70s that's almost what we did, although we used a "lease option" because we didn't have the 20% down payment yet. The house price was 2.5 times our annual income, and we knew we could afford the payments, plus utilities, car payments and food. At the end of the option period, a year later, we had saved up the 15% down that we didn't have at the beginning.
Our recent fictitious financing programs led to the fictitious home prices. Now sellers are crying that they "lost" a lot of equity (that they never really had) because the prices have reverted back toward where they really should have been. Home prices aren't quite where we need them to be, but they are getting closer!
All the short sales and foreclosures are very painful to the homeowners who are losing them, as well as to the lenders who are writing them off, and for the neighbors to watch!