Buying a home wouldn't make much sense if house prices were likely to decline further; no one wants to catch a falling knife.

No one should expect the value of their house to appreciate quickly - counting on your home to be a significant part of your retirement saving isn't a winning strategy - but it is reasonable to expect that prices generally will rise with at least the rate of inflation for some time to come.

An overheating economy, characterized by accelerating inflation and rising interest rates, is another precondition for recession. This doesn't describe today's economy.

Indeed, the FHA was born out of the Great Depression, which was also caused in significant part by a foreclosure crisis. Mortgages in the early 1930s were mostly three- to five-year 'bullet' loans, which did not amortize and were due in full at maturity.

My policy is I will help any policymaker who asks, whether they be a Republican or a Democrat.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the U.S. housing bubble, but not much of it belongs to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two giant housing-finance institutions made many mistakes over the decades, some of them real whoppers, but causing house prices to soar and then crater during the past decade weren't among them.

They called me the sexiest economist in America, and that was years ago, when I had hair and body mass and my teeth were shiny.