"Much of U.S. Was Insulated From Housing Bust"

Guess I should count myself as lucky -- I'm in a blue dot area. More here:

“Most U.S. metro areas actually experienced more moderate increases in house prices than the nation between 2000 and 2006. In fact, 249 of the 383 metropolitan areas tracked by the Federal Housing Finance Agency saw price increases below the national rate of 8.1% during the boom”... Many of these areas, in turn, didn’t experience the resulting bust.

The authors say a lack of nonprime lending in these areas played a prominent role in insulating them from the boom and bust. “It is likely that causation runs in both directions — an increase in nonprime lending led to more significant home price appreciation [in boom areas], and more rapid home price appreciation led to a rise in nonprime lending”...