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Few markets have had such a skyrocketing rise, followed immediately by an equally steep plummet to new depths, as the housing market has had in the early years of the twenty-first century. From 2000 to 2005, the median sales price of American single-family homes rose by more than 50 percent, from $143,000 to $219,600. In some places, the rise was even sharper. Over those same years, the median home price in New York rose 79 percent, in Los Angeles 110 percent and in San Diego 127 percent. In coastal California, the rise was especially sharp - and so was the later fall.

- From The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell