Up until recently, I did not understand nor care about the banking crisis. I was uneducated but now I have realized that it is part of what our generation will inherit. Mortgages were given out so freely because the companies who were giving them out weren’t holding on to them for a long period of time. The liability wouldn’t be in their hands for long and because of that they were less caring with what happened to mortgages. Mortgages were kind of a “currency” in that they were always being given from one company to another. Eventually the companies called in the mortgages and when many of them couldn’t be repaid, economic failure ensued. Now you may be thinking “how does this apply to us?” Well as students of architecture, we are the ones who will eventually construct homes for people to live in. When we design homes, we will need to take into account many things but one of the most important would be cost-effectiveness, meaning how we can build the cheapest but strongest house. If we can build cheaper, more affordable housing, it would put less of a financial burden on people and allow more people to purchase homes without a problem.
