offers to refinance my mortgage. I was given $50,000.00 after few weeks of filling up an application for my 7-bedroom house. In January of 2006, I received again a lot of offers from different mortgage lenders and I was given $20,000.00 for refinancing my mortgage loan for the second time after one year for my 7-bedroom house by another mortgage lender. My curiosity on why a lot of mortgage lenders were offering lower interest rates and why house prices are on the rise with relaxed mortgage lending guidelines during that time gave me an idea to do the research for Freddie Mac. I came across the analysis of an internationally renowned economist and winner of 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, Joseph Stiglitz, who served as chief economist of the World Bank from 1997-2000. According to him, “An institutionalized system of skewed incentive allowed Wall Street bankers and other corporate executives to gamble with America’s wealth and then get away largely scot-free after the house of cards had come tumbling down, plunging the U.S. into the worst economic crisis in decades and destroying trillions of dollars of wealth worldwide.” From my research, I concluded that the rapidly rising housing prices were the main signs that we were in a massive housing bubble during that time. From mid-1990 to 2007, residential properties kept rising and the mortgage-backed securities introduced by investment banks of Wall Street attracted American and foreign investors. Housing bubble occurs when housing prices overheat or overpriced as they skyrocket, only to come crashing for one or two decades to come. This research prompted me to sell my 7-bedroom house to sell in
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