decline in 14 years. This surplus created a huge and sustained downward pressure on house
prices. It was exacerbated by mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures. As the volume of
foreclosures rose, more houses were released onto the market, suppressing house prices further.
When the property was placed back on the market by the lender it was common for the
value of the property to have fallen. By early 2005 house prices had peaked and by 2006 they
had started to decline. However, they continued to fall on a year-on-year basis, the first time
this had occurred since the Great Depression. Average home sale prices nationwide fell 4.2%
in the 12 months to September 2007.13 In October 2007, the US Secretary of the Treasury,
Henry Paulson, called the bursting of the bubble “the most significant risk to our economy”.
In response to this surplus building output was reduced and house builders were forced to
reduce the sale price of their new properties. The reduced demand for new homes placed
pressure on companies initially in the house building sector and subsequently those allied to it.
A significant number of house builders either downsized or went into liquidation, contributing
to the pool of unemployed. As this pool grew it expanded the number of mortgage defaults,
driving up the number of vacant properties.
The housing problems continued into 2010. When the tax credits designed to boost sales
ended in May 2010 house sales began to slump. The National Association of Realtors subsequently
recorded a plunge in house sales in July 2010 of 27% compared with the previous
month. July had been the third month in a row that sales of previously built single homes
had fallen. More significantly, the monthly sales figure was the worst in ten years. On the announcement
the Dow Jones Index closed down 134 points at 10 040.45, close to the perceived
critical 10 000 threshold.