A drop in real income is bad enough, but individual households can make it worse by changing their collective savings behaviour. They have done so by turning home equity into consumption in the period 2003-2007 and started adding equity out of reduced incomes over the period 2008-2012. During the latter period banks became more cautious in their mortgage lending behaviour as evidenced by the substantial drop in new home mortgages granted, but new homes were still being built, so the total value of all homes did go up due to the home additions. If -as an approximate figure- one.
