Talk:United States housing bubble

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is a former featured article candidate. Please view its sub-page to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.

United States housing bubble has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Contents 1 Why are people removing links to blogs? 2 What happens when you control for quality? 3 Stuff 4 Reason for move to US housing bubble 5 Improper Use of Images from "The Economist?" 6 wikireason 7 Nominate for Featured? 8 External links 9 "Evaluations of the U.S. housing bubble" 10 Notes and references format 11 {{peerreview}} for United States housing bubble 12 <ref> bug? / Help! 13 Requested move to United States real estate prices.

[edit] Why are people removing links to blogs?

Are blogs not linked in other articles? That is about net neutrality? Erisa Goss 21:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What happens when you control for quality?

The argument for the existence of a US housing bubble would be strengthened if it could be shown that prices really were higher than historical norms even after controlling for home quality. New (and remodeled) homes tend to be larger, have more bedrooms, more bathrooms, are more likely to have air conditioning, etc.

A few references (from census.gov) to illustrate:

• Bedrooms per house
• Central AC
• Other characteristics

What happens when you control for quality? Do you still see a bubble? If so, how "big" is it?

Sciprogrammer 06:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't really make sense because the history is for homes to become larger and more featureful over time while cost indexes change little, generally being set at around 2-4 times income or 100-150 times rent. It might be interesting to explore this here or on a linked page, but there is no direct relevance to the kind of per-unit arguments being discussed here -- M0llusk 03:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's a paper that controls for home quality: Are Home Prices the Next "Bubble"?. See chart 6 in the paper for an illustration of what I'm getting at...note that the "bubble" flattens out when you control for some of these "quality" factors (along with interest rates). However, this paper is a bit old. Using this method with today's data, would there still be a bubble, and if so, how big of a bubble? Sciprogrammer 04:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Newer research with the same conclusion: Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals and Misperceptions (draft version) Sciprogrammer 07:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stuff

Whoever wrote this has no idea what they are talking about.

no opposing view represented --Herzog 20:18, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Many concepts are described on this wiki with at most a brief section on criticism. Counterpoint would indeed enrich this article, but should by no means be required. This article uses well selected quotes and references to establish a meaningful concept related to several trillion dollars in critically valued holdings. As such this article serves the purpose of documenting a specific, highly relevant example of an Economic Bubble. -- M0llusk 02:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reason for move to US housing bubble

"Housing bubble" is the commonly used term for this phenomenon in the US (over 1.8 million Google hits), not "property bubble" (under 64 thousand). The page "US property bubble" will be redirected. STSmith 21:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improper Use of Images from "The Economist?"

Graphic number 3 is an image from The June 16, 2005 Economist article "In come the waves." I don't think exact duplication of a graphic constitutes fair use... Otherwise I think the article is great.--Snorklefish 23:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I checked my print copy of The Economist as well as the online version. The graphic, as is EVERYTHING in The Economist, is covered by copyright. I don't see fair-use either. A reader of The Economist recognizes an Economist graph. The font style, colors and layout are standardized. Hence, reprinting the image is MORE than just reprinting data, it is copying the standard layout of The Economist. The problem can be easily surmounted... A new graph can be created from the data in the original...clearly fair-use. The Economist should be listed as the source. I want to emphasize that I think the authors/editors have done an excellent job.--Snorklefish 17:17, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Took Snorklefish's advice and created a new uncopyrighted graph from the Economist article. Frothy 12:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wikireason

Something about this article strikes me as unencyclopaedic. I thing it would fare better at wikireason. Mathiastck 18:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps dating the bubble would help? Essentially this is a more detailed and modern telling of the same story as the Florida swampland boom which has since been folded into the Miami page and buried. This is the economic equivilent of the 1918 flu. Maybe splitting out some of the value analysis into separate pages? Making this all a magazine article seems like a way of burying valuable historical records. --M0llusk 00:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nominate for Featured?

Anyone else think this article deserves Featured? It's already one of the best economics-related articles I've seen on here and the attention it will get from Featured can only improve the article's quality. SlapAyoda 18:26, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it has the quality of a featured article yet. Here are some possible problems:

• The current language includes vague and unverfied or unverifiable claims, such as
  • "Americans' love of their homes is widely known and acknowledged"
  • "Many have commented anecdotally on this phenomenon"
  • "This folk wisdom is often heard,"
  • "For some this has been undoubtedly true, and for others, not." (practically a truism)
  • "It has been said that..."
  • "any correction in valuations is expected to be..." Expected by whom? Wikipedia is not a crystal ball.
• The "Evaluations of the U.S. housing bubble" section is just a long list; prose explaining different perspectives might be better.
• Some of the claims in the article are unsourced or not specifically sourced. Conversely, most of the references in "Further reading" are not connected with the body of the article in any way; it looks like a random list of books on the topic.
• The Time and Harper's cover images appear to violate Wikipedia:Fair use rules, since they are not used specifically "to illustrate the publication of the issue of the magazine in question". See {{magazinecover}}.

Of course it's easier to criticize the article than to improve it, and the above is only my opinion as someone who's not an expert. Wmahan. 04:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

All of these assertions are supported in the "Evaluations" section. What is missing are the cited, Wikified links. Frothy 11:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Excellent points in general. However, the use of {{magazinecover}} appears entirely appropriate, as it states, "to illustrate the publication of the issue of the magazine in question." The fact that Time and Harpers published these cover articles is noteworthy and used as such within the article. I'll comment on the "Evaluations" section below. Frothy 23:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

These comments have all been cited appropriately now, as detailed below. There is more work to do, but I believe that this represents a significant improvement in encyclopedic quality. Frothy 13:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, nice work so far. Wmahan. 16:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. All done for now. The "Evaluations" and "Evidence" sections have been subsumed into the notes and a new section on both predictions and status of the market. This gives a reasonable synopsis, but obviously more can be done. Frothy 04:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I have been removing links to blogs from this article. I'll explain why, since there appears to be resistance from some anonymous users.

Links to blogs are generally discouraged: Wikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided includes links to blogs. An exception is made for particularly relevant or high-quality sites, but in my judgement none of the blogs I removed came close to this standard. Rather, it appears that most of the links were added in an attempt to promote the sites or their advertisements.

Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promotion or a web directory. If you still feel a particular blog is significant enough to be included, please comment here. Reasonable discussion is always welcome. Wmahan. 03:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Wmahan,

You are a little idiot.

So, in YOUR judgment the blogs you removed are NOT relevant. If you knew anything at all, you would know that thoes blogs are the most highly trafficed blogs on the US housing bubble. They are the only outlet for a counter point of view than the mainstream media etc.

Im adding them back... DO NOT remove them again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.39.37.130 (talk • contribs) .

Could we agree here to only include links that really satisfy WP:EL's exceptions for blogs and the like: "such as in cases where the article is about, or closely related to, the website itself, or where the website is of a particularly high standard." I'd say that Ben Jones's blog definitely falls within this camp because it is to comprehensive, frequently updated, and influential. There are several other blogs I really like, but I'm not sure that I'd argue that they meet these exceptions. If someone else wishes to make this argument, please feel free. But less is more here, I think it would be best to avoid a link zoo. Frothy 23:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd shorten that for clarity's sake and say that only the exception that reads "where the website is of a particularly high stardared" is admissible in this case. (Since United States housing bubble is about a phenomenon and not a website, the first half of the exception that Frothy quotes doesn't apply.) Otherwise, I agree with Frothy's assessment. I also note that "particularly high" is a particularly high bar to clear and should be interpreted as such. Few blogs are of particularly high quality that they stand in our esteem with the likes of the New York Times, and we shouldn't be giving a pass to any but those few. — Saxifrage ✎ 00:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

These exceptions are OR's -- this OR that OR that must hold to except them. I argue in the case of Ben's blog, ALL exceptions apply -- relevant, particularly high standard, unique resource not available in the article. I'm restoring Ben's. Frothy 11:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean in your first sentence. — Saxifrage ✎ 16:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

For a link to a blog to be acceptable under WP:EL, it must satisfy only one of these criteria. Of course, more is better. From the exception to item 9 of WP:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided, "However, there are exceptions, such as in cases:

• "where the article is about, or closely related to, the website itself"
• "or where the website is of a particularly high standard."

Also, the contrapositive of item 1 of WP:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided implies that a site that provides a unique resource beyond what the article [could] is acceptable. Any website or blog that can reasonably argued to fall within just one of these cases is fair game for an editor to consider including. For the case of Ben Jones's blog, I'd say that this satisfies all three for just the archival purposes alone. Frothy 20:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah! Logical OR, not WP:OR. :)

I still don't think the first exception applies: where it says "article" it meas the Wikipedia article, and where it says "site" it means the blog. To satisfy that exception this article would have to be about the blog or closely related to the blog. In this case, they merely share the same subject, which is the standard state of affairs between Wikipedia articles and blogs that are disallowed. (That exception is there so that articles about significant blogs or about their creators can have links to the blogs without running afoul of policy.) Granted that this is academic though, for if it fits the second exception and the contrapositive of the "to be avoided" that you cite, then that is, indeed, enough. — Saxifrage ✎ 22:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I've had a minor change of heart regarding blogs, especially after reading the Newsweek magazine story about Ben Jones's blog. This article features Ben, but also has pointers to many of the blogs that have been important voices warning of this bubble. Because they are featured in a WP:V spurce, and it is obvious that the presence of blogs has played an important role in this story, I have included the blogs mentioned in the Newsweek article. Frothy 18:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion some external links should be included. These links would be to external sites that show signs of significant editing and consistent context. Possibly links to specific relevant articles from the blog could help clear this point? I strongly agree with the general policy, but in this case there is a blog with strong focus and relevance combined with thorough editing (housingbubbleblog.com). -- M0llusk 20:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Evaluations of the U.S. housing bubble"

I agree that this section is probably not needed. Most of the information can be found elsewhere. Perhaps a few of the items in it could be used as external sources for some of the information above. Should this section be removed? SlapAyoda 16:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I vote for "not yet" here. It's easy to criticize this section, yet it is these very evaluations that help to clarify and provide insight into the existence and reasons behind the bubble -- a notoriously squishy subject really until about 4 months ago. Therfore, such evaluations, opinions, and analysis are absolutely necessary in an article such as this, independently of the nuts-and-bolts "evidence" section. Without them, the article would become too analytic and deterministic -- the antithesis of a bubble. The "evaluations" section gives insight into the human element in the face of the bubble. The "evaluations" section does need a major overhaul -- is there an example article elsewhere in Wikipedia that we could use as a template to include this salient commentary from America's economic, political, and news leaders? Another thing that would improve things would be to Wikify the references. Frothy 23:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

After some thought, it seems to me that the best way to incorporate this important commentary in an encyclopedic article is to use an "annotated notes" format. This would solve several problems: no more floating section, it would force specific citations for the assertions noted above, and it would force the Wikification of the citations, and would keep this important, relevat information within the article (as part of an end notes section to be added automagically). If no one objects or has a better idea, I'll figure out how to do this and begin the process. Frothy 20:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

If you need a hand with that, I'm very familiar with the Wikipedia:Footnotes markup. — Saxifrage ✎ 22:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I would—thanks! May I suggest two things that would help? First, be bold and just take one of your favorite quotes from the "Evaluations" section and incorporate it as an annotated citation where it is most appropriate in the article. Second, put a pointer here to what you did, and that will encourage myself and others to progressively Wikify the citations and turn this quote-mine section into an annotated referernce list whenever we find a little time. What I'm thinking is some way to keep these quotes at the end with all the citation stuff organized in the right way, and little footnotes in the text itself. AT the end, any quote in this section that can't be used as citation in the article (or a place made for it), doesn't belong. Frothy 01:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty! First I created a section to hold the footnotes and put <references/> in it—that automatically is filled in with the collection of footnotes that appear in the rest of the article. (changes) This only has to be done once, though you might want to fiddle with the title of the section to most accurately reflect the footnotes' use. I called it "Notes and references" as a standard "I'm not sure what this will end up being" title, but other standard titles are "Footnotes" and (when only used for references) just plain "References".

Next I created a note in the body of the article. I grabbed the Bush quote and put it between an opening <ref> tag and a closing </ref> tag where the redundant external link used to appear. (changes)

Essentially, anything that appears between the <ref></ref> tags will appear wherever in the article there is a <references/> tag. If you want to re-use a footnote/reference in another place, there's a trick to do that without having a duplicate show up in the notes section, but that's probably not necessary for this use and the markup is more complicated. This is a good start. — Saxifrage ✎ 02:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes and references format

Dear editors, Please help us transform the section "Evaluations" into a proper annotated list of notes used within the article. The format to use is given below. Just take your favorite quote, and insert it in the right place using this template. If the right place doesn't exist, please write one.After you're done, please clean up by deleting the quote from this section. When this process is finished, we should have:

• No more "Evaluations" section—these will all be in the annotated notes.
• No more section pointing to magazines as refs; these will also be in the notes.
• A transformed "Evidence" section that has actual writing in it, using the annotated notes format.

—Frothy 17:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Saxifrage! That works great!! I copied a format from another page that makes these double column and smaller. I also used the {{cite news}} template. The "example" format is now:

"quoted stuff."<ref>President [[George W. Bush]] was asked about the housing boom's impact on the ability of the questioner's children to purchase a home. The President answered "… If houses get too expensive, people will stop buying them, which will cause people to adjust their spending habits. … Let the market function properly. I guarantee that your kind of question has been asked throughout the history of homebuilding—you know, prices for my homes are getting bid up so high that I'm afraid I'm not going to have any consumers—or my kid—and yet, things cycle. That's just the way it works. Economies should cycle." {{cite news | last=Bush | first=George W. |title=President Highlights Importance of Small Business in Economic Growth | publisher=[[The White House]] | date=[[19 January]] [[2006]] | url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060119-2.html}}</ref>

—Frothy 16:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Saxifrage, Would you please show us how to add a reference to an exisiting one, so as to avoid doubles? I'd like to put a pointer to the Time magazine cover article (the first ref) next to the line "Americans' love of their homes is widely known and acknowledged". Also, if you would drop the template for doing so here, that would help a lot. Frothy 17:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Beautifully done!

Sure thing. The key to reusing a footnote is that footnotes can be given names and inserted by name. So, in the example above you could change the beginning <ref>Bush...</ref> to <ref name="Bush on housing">Bush...</ref> to give it a name. Then it could be reused lower in the article by inserting only <ref name="Bush on housing"/> where you want the footnote number to appear. (Notice the extra slash before the >. That tells the software not expect any more text.)

The quirk to reusing references is that it only works when the name-only reference markup appears later in the article than where the name-and-full-text reference markup appears. If the name-only one is put higher in the article, the automatic footnote at the bottom of the article will show up blank. So, if a footnote has to be reused earlier in an article, the original footnote has to be moved up to the new spot and a name-only one added where the full-text one used to be. — Saxifrage ✎ 17:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{peerreview}} for United States housing bubble

Please note that I've requested {{peerreview}} for this article at Wikipedia:Peer_review/United_States_housing_bubble#.5B.5BUnited_States_housing_bubble.5D.5D. Frothy 11:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

"Several positive comments have been made about the article "US housing bubble," both at its talk page and over the web (blogs, Google), and the discussion came about about nominating it as a featured article. Saxifrage suggested that it be peer reviewed as part of this process, so I've requested this here. Your comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated. Frothy 11:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)"

The article looks much improved, but here is some more (hopefully constructive) criticism:

Absolutely—thanks! I'll add comments as these are addressed. Frothy 11:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• The first sentence is clunky: The United States housing bubble refers to an economic bubble in real estate in the United States. It shouldn't be necessary to mention the US twice.

Excellent point. I've made the first sentence much more definitive, while acknowledging that the "bubble" refers to either an actual or hypothesized condition, and made it clear that certain (populous) parts of the US are specifically affected. Frothy 14:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

• I still think there is too much reliance on questionable fair use images. For example, the description of Image:Barrons BubblesNewHome 20050620.gif says "no copyright stated, so fair use", and it uses a template claiming that "no free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information". I'm hardly a copyright zealot but it seems to me that taking images from copyrighted sources for the key illustrations is not the best approach, unless there is little chance of a free alternative. And of course mere failure to state copyright doesn't make an image free. The freely available images in the article are a good start.

Agreed. A free version would be trivial to produce, and should be done. Frothy 11:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. Frothy 18:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• The list of TV programs takes up a disproportionate amount of the article. The article should briefly define "flipping".

Agreed. These have been moved to notes and refs, and link added to article about Flipping Houses. Frothy 11:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• In general the article seems to focus on the bubble in popular culture: magazines, general-audience books, and TV programs. I would be interested to see more about how economists see the causes and effects of the bubble. I'm sure not all economists agree, so an overview of the perspectives would be nice.

I strongly disagree here—the great majority of the content, notes and references are from influential economists and business people (Alan Greenspan, Robert Shiller, Warren Buffett, George Soros, David Lereah, many others), and the rest are from WP:V media sources on economics (The Economist, the Wall Street Journal’s June Fletcher, the New York Times’s Paul Krugman, many others). Please take another look. Frothy 11:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, maybe I overgeneralized here. I was interested in more detailed coverage of the disagreements and debates. The article does a good job of saying that the bubble may be caused by X, Y, or Z, but it isn't clear whether each of these explanations is a consensus among economists, one person's theory, or somewhere in between. Wmahan. 03:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I added text and a citation to this Business Week article on a discussion between several economists last summer. A lot has changed since then, so it's out of date, but it shows the history of debate. Frothy 18:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

• How is the housing bubble to similar to, and different from, other notable economic bubbles?

That's a good question. For length, I don't see this as a full section, but perhaps a sentence to paragraph in the intro. Frothy 11:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, I didn't mean that we should necessarily spend space discussing other bubbles. I meant that the article could explain what features define the rising prices as a bubble similar to past bubbles, rather than a sustainable growth. Likewise, if there are any features of the housing market that are rare in economic bubbles, these could be given as possible arguments that there is not, in fact, a bubble. Wmahan. 03:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

• How do the bubble's effects vary geographically? The article already mentions that it's most pronounced in California, Las Vegas, Florida and Washington, D.C., but that could be expanded. Is there a bubble in all areas? Is the phenomenon limited to the US? Wmahan. 19:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Another good question. The answer here should also be dovetailed with the issue of whether or not the US housing bubble exists everywhere in the US (it doesn't), or just in certain markets. Frothy 11:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to thank everyone for their excellent feedback. I believe that I've addressed the great majority of the comments. As activity here has died down, I'm going to proceed to put this up as a candidate for "featured." Frothy 18:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Supporting for featured article. SlapAyoda 20:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] <ref> bug? / Help!

This one is driving me nuts and makes no sense:

• The current page United States housing bubble has fouled up citations, running into 147, with repeats. I must have (???) added some stray ASCII to foul this up, but I don't see what.
• However, clicking the history tab and looking at the latest version, which should be the exact same thing (link) renders everything perfectly, with the correct 85 citations and no repeats. Therefore, I must not have done anything wrong.

WTF? Anybody know what's up here? A Wiki-bug? Frothy 21:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I got the same thing yesterday at GNS theory. I thought it was me too, but if it's happening elsewhere then we're blameless. Likely they changed the code handling refs and introduced a bug in the software. Wait it out, is all I can say. — Saxifrage ✎ 21:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

According to a bugzilla:7162 pointer at the help desk, this is a known problem that is fixed by issuing ?action=purge, i.e., for this page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_housing_bubble?action=purge. This does indeed fix the immediate problem. Frothy 13:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move to United States real estate prices.

I only opened this discussion because of the header at the top of the article.

Against Who requested this? I feel it is uneeded. Elfich 17:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Against as above, why should it be moved? Pathlessdesert 19:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It was a user by the name Punanimal who claimes the the current title is inhenrently POV. --67.68.154.227 20:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Against Punanimal is a Realtor(tm)