Intro
Why I Made This Series: The Builder's Compass Explained
Why Matt spent years studying how government policy, builders and market cycles move housing, and how the series is laid out.
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A video history of American housing booms and busts, told by Matt Walsh, Treasure Coast real estate agent and licensed mortgage loan originator. Each chapter looks at how government policy, builder behavior and market cycles moved home prices, and what those patterns can tell you about today's market.
Chapter 1
The 1920s Florida Land Boom: The First Housing Bubble in America
Florida's first great real estate frenzy, when lots changed hands on paper for ever-higher prices before the market collapsed in the mid-1920s, years ahead of the Great Depression.
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Chapter 2
How WWII and the GI Bill Created the Modern American Suburb
How the 1944 GI Bill's home loan guarantee let millions of returning veterans buy homes with little or nothing down, and how builders raced to meet them.
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Chapter 3
The Birth of Suburbia: How Highways Helped Create the Housing Boom
How the interstate highway program opened up land far from city centers and turned commuting suburbs into the American default.
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Chapter 4
The 1970s Inflation Crisis: America's First Modern Housing Crash
What runaway inflation and oil shocks did to borrowing costs, builders and buyers, and why it still shapes how people think about real estate as a hedge.
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Chapter 5
The 1980s Volcker Shock: When Mortgage Rates Hit 18%
How the Federal Reserve's fight against inflation pushed 30-year mortgage rates to around 18% in the early 1980s, and what buyers and sellers did to get deals done.
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Chapter 6
How 750 Banks Failed: The Forgotten History of the 2008 Crash
The lender failures that rarely make the headlines, and what they reveal about risk building quietly inside the mortgage system.
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Chapter 7
Stability, Not Stimulus: The 1990s Housing Market
A decade of steady, unspectacular growth, and why calm markets driven by fundamentals often build more lasting wealth than booms.
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Chapter 8
The Truth About the Community Reinvestment Act and the 2008 Crash
What the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 actually required of banks, and the long-running debate over what role, if any, it played in the lending boom that led to the 2008 crash.
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Chapter 9
Wall Street Demanded Subprime: The 2000 to 2006 Housing Bubble
How Wall Street's appetite for mortgage-backed securities pulled lenders into subprime and no-documentation loans, inflating the bubble that burst in 2007 and 2008.
Watch on YouTubeThe Builder's Compass
Read the book
The Builder's Compass: How Government Policy, Builder Behavior, and Market Cycles Create Predictable Real Estate Opportunities goes deeper than the videos, with the signals Matt watches to spot market shifts before they hit the headlines.
Get the book on AmazonHistory is useful. Local advice is better. If you're buying or selling in Palm City, Stuart, Sewall's Point, Jensen Beach, Hutchinson Island, Port St. Lucie, Hobe Sound, Tequesta, Jupiter or Palm Beach Gardens, Matt will tell you where today's market fits in the cycle for your neighborhood.