The real estate industry celebrated another big year for home price appreciation - up 6.3% y-o-y.
Prices have almost returned to peak housing bubble levels, and the industry forecasts nothing but smooth sailing as far as the eye can see.

The real estate bubble was so 2007.
It burst and a lot of people lost their homes, the banks went bust, and the financial system nearly collapsed, but home prices came down, right?

What if I was to tell you that the real estate bubble has not only been re-inflated, but is now bigger than ever before?
You might find it hard to believe because practically no one in the media is talking about it. Yet the information is out there and readily available.

When Jill Soloway accepted her Emmy for directing TransParent, she mentioned her transgender parent and said,

She could, tomorrow, go and try to find an apartment, and in 32 states it would be legal for the landlord to look her in the eye and say, ‘We don’t rent to trans people.’

For as long as Paola Ramirez has journeyed through her gender identity, she has been haunted by housing insecurity — first as a pained young boy living with her parents in Guatemala, then on her own as a gay man and, finally, as a transgender woman in New York.

Paola's studio apartment in Queens has a new owner, so her lease is up for renewal. But Paola is being told she cannot renew unless she presents some ID stating that her female name and gender.

I feel pressure.

--Ramirez

Is the housing bust over? You would think so since the media hasn't talked about it in several years. But if you look at the homeownership rate, the housing bust appears to be bigger than ever.

While homewonership rates in all age ranges are dropping, it is especially pronounced in the younger generation.

In December 2013, Shaun Donovan, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, gave this warning:

"We are in the midst of the worst rental affordability crisis that this country has known."

Few paid attention to the warning, and of those who did, even fewer would have guessed that the crisis had only just started.

All the politicians and economists will tell you that the economy has recovered. While things aren't as bad as they were in 2008-2010, it certainly doesn't feel like we've ever gotten over the crash.