The unprecidented rise in housing prices has created opportunities for quick profits. This increases real estate activities involving greedy people and people who are inexperienced, leading to an increased opportunity for fraud.

The website: The Mortgage Fraud Blog has an extensive collection of postings on a variety of subjects, including topics relating to Maryland

The real estate finance industry is strongly linked to other finance sectors, which in turn are strongly linked to other sectors of the economy. For example, Fannie Mae bundles mortgages and sells them as mortgage backed securities (MBS). These are bought by other finance entities such as banks. MBSs have become more risky as the mortgages underlying them have been based on exotic instruments, link interest only loans, and a more extensive use of adjustable rate mortgages. Banks, pension funds, and others have invested heavily in these MBS instruments, and are at risk if they don't pay off.

Fannie Mae, in turn, has invested heavily in risky, mostly unregulated derivatives market (hedge funds deal with derivatives). A year or two ago, Fannie Mae lost billions on bad investments, and had to restate their profit reporting.

In short, the linkages between the real estate finance industry and the rest of the economy increases the "systemic risk" of a financial crisis that would imact employment levels, availability of loans for investment and home purchases, and other basic aspects of the economy.

Activists interested in social change should be prepared to step into the vaccuum created by such a crisis. Experiments in alternative economic models could have a fertile environment under such circumstances.