It can scarcely be argued that the substitutions of debt service for rent materially impaired the financial state of the new homeowner.
Yet the process over the past decade added more than 10 percent to outstanding mortgage debt and accounted for more than one-seventh of the increase in total household debt over that period.9 Thus, short of a period of appreciable overall economic weakness, households, with the exception of some highly leveraged subprime borrowers, do not appear to be faced with significant financial strain.