low interest rates reduced monthly payments, which allowed home buyers to buy bigger, fancier, more expensive homes, at the same monthly installment. Prices rose and rose. To feed the market, lenders created interest-only and other delayed- or hidden-payment loans, which only bought borrowers time as they stacked up more and more debt. Eventually, they would owe too much; the only way out was to find another buyer for an even higher price. Someday that trick would
