“SOME ARTIFACT or some development, seemingly new and desirable–tulips in Holland, gold in Louisiana, real estate in Florida . . .–captures the financial mind. . . . The price of the object of speculation goes up. . . . This increase and the prospect attract new buyers; the new buyers assure a further increase. Yet more are attracted . . . “. So economist John Kenneth Galbraith writes in his “Short History of Financial Euphoria.”

That, worry many observers, describes America’s housing market. Stories of people buying condominiums in the morning, and selling them for a substantial profit later in the day, enliven the financial press. Cocktails parties are made merrier by the game of “whose-house-has-increased-the-most-in-value.” Surely we are witnessing the final stages of a house-price bubble.