I'm not sure if the decline in home sales beginning in 2005 reflects the fact that stagnating wages and earnings were showing up as a decline in home sales that early, or if some regulators were starting to tighten the screws that early. Also, there was Greenspan raising interest rates off the 1.0% floor he had brought them down to after the dot com bust.  I'm not sure of the dates of the interest rate increases, but I think they began in 2004.