Failure to address technological-driven structural changes in the real estate market that began three decades ago has caused runaway home prices that developed countries are experiencing today. The real estate crash that preceded the Global Financial Crisis, and the entire Global Financial Crisis resulted from the panic that was created about the rapid increase in home prices that was falsely labeled a real estate bubble by the media which was quickly adapted by policymakers. Policymakers and the media blamed greedy mortgage brokers for the rapid increase in home prices, accusing mortgage brokers of providing mortgages to too many people for homes that the borrowers could not afford. It turns out that the media and policymakers were completely wrong when mortgage brokers were falsely blamed for creating a real estate bubble because a real estate bubble never existed. The true cause of the rapid increase in home prices was the early stages of a real estate boom from technological-driven structural changes in the real estate market. Failure to address structural changes in the real estate housing market which started three decades ago, has resulted in runaway home prices in the United States and developed countries around the world. As a result of the failure widespread economic hardship from homelessness is a significant risk as working families find themselves priced out of the housing market. Three decades of economic policy failures and the mismanagement of the housing sector have resulted in a looming housing crisis that continues to increase as developed countries face runaway home prices. Policymakers throughout developed countries eagerly accepted the media-driven misinformation of a real estate bubble without any evidence presented supporting the narrative. The failure of policymakers to gain an understanding of factors that have been driving the rapid increase in home prices which began three decades ago, resulted in the real estate crash, Global Financial Crisis, and Great Recession. Much of the economic hardship and the looming housing crisis facing working families today could have been avoided. For many working American families, the prospect of home ownership no longer exists due to skyrocketing home prices. The looming homeless crisis facing the developed world today is the direct result of economic policy failures that have ignored the structural changes in the housing market for three decades. The move from print media real estate listings to online real estate listings and the adaptation of online mortgage loan applications along with automated mortgage underwriting between 1995 and 1999, exponentially increased the quantity of inventory needed in the housing market of developed countries. The shift in the demand curve for housing structurally changed the housing market in developed countries resulting in the complete transformation that saw the demand for housing skyrocket by 2000. New homebuyers who previously only had access to local housing markets before the transformation of the housing market began in 1995, had full access to homes listed anywhere online in other real estate markets by the end of 1999. The increased demand caused the rapid growth in home prices. Failure to implement policies to drastically increase home inventory in developed countries to address the structural transformation of the housing market which drastically increased the demand for homes was a significant economic policy failure. Instead of implementing policies to significantly increase home inventory, new construction was idle for over a decade as policymakers adopted the media-driven misinformation of a real estate bubble and supported policies to address the nonexistent real estate bubble.
Keywords: Eddison Walters Real Estate Housing Technology Structural Change Transformational Theory, Eddison Walters Risk Expectation Theory, Global Financial Crisis
