Our heart goes out to all those unfortunate American Dreamers who invested everything in buying a home some time in the past five years or so, only to see it all blow up thanks to the mortgage meltdown.

"Sorry bout that!" say all the savvy people who waited until after the recession to jump in and buy a home in one of those cities where the housing market was just heating back up again... just in time for the next housing crash.

The federal government is about to stop guaranteeing loans for homes that are much more expensive than the national average, which seems perfectly fair but which will, nevertheless, spook buyers and lenders and generally make all the housing market's shit roll downhill, towards you:

"We're looking at more price drops, more foreclosures," said Rick Del Pozzo, a loan broker. "This snowball that's been rolling downhill is going to pick up some speed."

Fantastic. Meanwhile, David Leonhardt points out that the costs of buying vs. renting in many metro areas are still so out of wack that it's "enough to make you wonder whether parts of the housing market are still due for a crash." Shut up, David Leonhardt! Always telling people to rent rather than to sink everything into real estate purchases! If that happened we'd never even have housing crashes, and you, sir, would be out of a job. Positive thinking is a necessary part of moving forward as a nation, and as a real estate market. Let's all keep in mind that "ultraquick foreclosures managed by a team of mercenaries" are a distasteful but necessary part of keeping our nation free and respecting private property.

Besides, you unemployed people with foreclosure looming over you are only competing with 3.3 other unemployed people for each available job now. Those are way better odds than you get with scratch-off lottery tickets. Things should be back to normal very soon.

[Photo: Jeff Turner/ Flickr]