Article: The Philadelphia Inquirer On Personal Finance column: Real bubble in housing that's bursting? Subprime loans.(Column)

Byline: Jeff Brown

Feb. 11--If it looks like a bubble, smells like a bubble, and tastes like a bubble, it must be a bubble. Or is it? The smart money now says the U.S. housing market, overall, is not in a bubble. But at least one part of the market certainly looks pretty frothy -- the mushrooming "subprime" mortgage market, for borrowers who can't get standard loans. Now, that bubble seems to be bursting. On Wednesday, the huge mortgage firm HSBC Holdings P.L.C., a big player in the subprime market, said its bad debts exceeded $10.5 billion for 2006. On Thursday, shares of a number of mortgage lenders plunged as worry about mortgage defaults spread. ...

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