Page 53 - untitled

 FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION REPORT

think are going to be able to pay that off—than was true , ,  years ago? I mean,
what’s changed in the world? There were a lot of things that didn’t require any inves-
tigation at all; these were totally available in the data.” 
Warren Peterson, a home builder in Bakersfield, felt that he could pinpoint when
the world changed to the day. Peterson built homes in an upscale neighborhood, and
each Monday morning, he would arrive at the office to find a bevy of real estate
agents, sales contracts in hand, vying to be the ones chosen to purchase the new
homes he was building. The stream of traffic was constant. On one Saturday in No-
vember , he was at the sales office and noticed that not a single purchaser had
entered the building.
He called a friend, also in the home-building business, who said he had noticed
the same thing, and asked him what he thought about it.
“It’s over,” his friend told Peterson. 