Late-2000s recession: Housing bubble

By 2007, real estate bubbles were still under way in many parts of the world, especially in the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, France, Poland, South Africa, Israel, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Canada, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Argentina, Baltic states, India, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and China.[citation needed] U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in mid-2005 that "at a minimum, there's a little 'froth' (in the U.S. housing market) … it's hard not to see that there are a lot of local bubbles" [23]. The Economist magazine, writing at the same time, went further, saying "the worldwide rise in house prices is the biggest bubble in history".[24] Real estate bubbles are invariably followed by severe price decreases (also known as a house price crash) that can result in many owners holding negative equity (a mortgage debt higher than the current value of the property).