credit bust
the bankruptcy laws changed fairly substantially in favor of the lender some 3 years ago. before then you came out of bankruptcy proceedings with bad credit, no assets, and no debt. now you come out with bad credit, no assets, and a payment plan. the spike in bankruptcy filings before the new laws was obvious. not so obvious then is what else happened. lenders believe it'll be easier to collect more money from people. bankruptcy can't protect them any more. profits should go up. they did. but it also means that lenders can afford to lend to people with horrible credit. so they did everything they could to sell those loans. and we ended up with people living in more house than they can afford. which is okay as long as housing prices go up quickly. but as soon as a few people default housing prices drop. and the real estate market turns into an avalanche. the technical term is self organized criticality. and yeah, the problems in the housing market predate the bankruptcy revisions. this is more like the straw that broke the camel's back.