Then, the real house-price change in ten large US cities (whose residents constitute roughly 10% of the US population) was comparable to that in Tokyo (where a similar percentage of the Japanese population lives) in the late 1980s, as shown in Chart 8.
Chart 8 Real house price developments in the United States and Japan  Source: S&P Case-Shiller Indexes, RRPI Indexes, US and Japanese CPI. 8  “Low doc loans” and “no doc loans” are mortgage loans that require less than full documentation of income, employment, and assets.