But the peak has passed, and the consequences of the deflating bubble are buffeting the housing market, in Washington and across the United States.
What sold in a weekend here last year is taking months to unload. And increasingly nervous home sellers are slashing prices to get rid of properties before their value sinks even further. One buyer recently threatened to walk away from a signed contract on a $1.6-million house unless the seller took $100,000 off the price to reflect the drop in value since the deal was struck. The seller quickly buckled, fearing the house might be worth even less if put back on the market today.
“Look how fast prices were going up. The same thing is happening on the way down,” observed Ms. Gaus, who's been selling homes in Potomac for 16 years. “It's a very tough market.”
The once red-hot housing market has fizzled. And the topic du jour among economists, investors and policy makers is whether the end of the housing boom signals the beginning of the end of a long run for the world's mightiest economy, and by association, the rest of the planet.
The U.S. housing crash may prove to be the economic equivalent of the canary in the coal mine — a warning of impending danger in an economy that has surged too far, too fast.