Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!

BusinessWeek interviews Robert Shiller. Time magazine still has no idea there was a housing bubble.

Poor Time - they have to ignore the housing crash or else they look like the fool for their infamous "Home $weet Home" June 2005 cover. Nice to see BusinessWeek stay on top of the bubble and crash story, with this excellent interview with HP-hero Shiller - here's some snippets:

Where are home prices headed?

Looking at our national home-price index [the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices], it appears that the boom is over. I think there's a good chance home prices will be down 10% to 30% over the next five years.

Developers are throwing in an SUV or granite countertops to lure buyers. Does this mean prices have fallen more than the data show?

Developers don't want to cut prices. They try to disguise [them]. The government's new-home price index doesn't take this into account.

What will bring the boom to an end?

Bubbles don't pop suddenly. The air comes out gradually. Booms end when prices start to fall, and then there are stories of buyer stupidity that are told and retold.

Was the recent rise in home prices the biggest housing boom in U.S. history?

In the sense that it was the most pervasive. We've had booms before, but they didn't capture the whole country. This one started out in the glamour cities, and then it spread from place to place.