Ten years ago this month marks the anniversary of one of the most dramatic events of the 2008 financial crisis: the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States. While the spectacular failures of Wall Street firms grabs most of our attention, it is important to remember that it was the meltdown of the U.S. residential mortgage market that precluded the failure of the investment banks.

That enormous housing bubble was, in turn, fueled not by an unregulated free-market, but by the federal government’s audacious housing policies. What may surprise many Americans is that even a decade after the financial crisis, these same policies remain ever-present – and they appear to be contributing to another house price boom.