Are you ready for the next housing crisis?  This crisis will be like an aftershock from an earth quake. Sometimes the aftershock can be as damaging as the original catastrophe.

The initial housing bubble was primarily caused by wall street lenders allowing buyers, who could not qualify to purchase a home in the traditional manner, to increase the demand for single family homes by providing sub-prime loans. Eventually these sub-prime borrowers began to default on their mortgages and this in turn dramatically increased the supply of homes on the market relative to the number of qualified buyers.

Prices appear to be falling at an accelerating rate. If someone purchased a home in January 2008 and put 20% down while obtaining an 80% to value loan, they lost all of their equity in the first 12-months of ownership.

If the downward spiral continues, a large percentage of homeowners will not be able to refinance their homes, because all, or most of their equity will have disappeared. Nor will they be able to buy a new house because they will not be able to sell their present house.

Frankly, if you want to get equity out of your house; do it now. It may not be there tomorrow.