Cycle Explainer · Volcker era · 1979–1985
The Volcker Housing Crash, 1979–1985
How Paul Volcker's 19% federal funds rate broke double-digit inflation — and froze the U.S. housing market for four years.
U.S. housing cycle explainers
Long-form analyses of the major U.S. housing cycles. Each explainer traces the causal chain — what drove the boom, what triggered the unwind, and what the lasting structural effects were.
Cycle Explainer · Subprime era · 2003–2012
The 2008 Subprime Housing Collapse
The decade-long expansion of mortgage securitization that drove the 2005 peak — and the four-year unwind that bottomed in 2011.
Cycle Explainer · Pandemic era · 2020–2024
The 2020–2021 COVID Housing Surge
How sub-3% mortgage rates, remote-work demand, and a frozen existing-inventory market produced the steepest two-year price run on record — and the rate-lock era that followed.