the rise and fall of home equity borrowing

via steve perry at minnpost:here's an image from calculated risk showing the rise and fall of american borrowing against our home mortgages.

dang -- i had no idea the practice blew up and blew apart so quickly. as the value of our homes rose, we used them like ATM machines, taking out cheap loans against their putatively rock-solid value. as the housing market cooled and then froze solid, so did borrowing -- and, hence, consumption. no wonder HD started tanking in mid-2007...