Preliminary Staff Report: The Mortgage Crisis – Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC)| April 7, 2010: “The purpose of this preliminary staff report is to describe the recent mortgage crisis, which entailed a dramatic drop in home prices beginning in 2006 and a sharp rise in mortgage defaults beginning in 2007. Section I describes the origination of mortgages over the two decades leading up to the crisis. Section II documents some evidence on the expansion in subprime and alt-A lending in the 2000s. Section III describes the increase in home ownership over this period. Section IV describes the unprecedented run-up in home prices from 1998 to 2006 and their subsequent steep decline. Section V describes the increase in mortgage defaults from 2007 to 2009. Section VI briefly discusses evidence on the reasons for this increase in mortgage defaults.”