I'm getting the feeling more and more people are waking up and realizing that the housing ponzi scheme is over, an epic crash is now underway, and the late great housing bubble was just a mirage, which will come and go in the blink of an eye.

The smart money is out, the getting smart money is getting out, and the true losers in this game will be the folks in denial, who see the writing on the wall and do nothing. Financial ruin is on the way. The latest real estate gold rush was simply a rush to fool's gold.

Home Is Where the Worry Is

We are at the endgame for housing. Until recently our national motto has been "In real estate we trust." Just last week the Census Bureau reported that median home prices after inflation rose 32 percent from 2000 to 2005.

In some places, the gains were huge: 127 percent in San Diego, 110 percent in Los Angeles and 79 percent in New York. But real estate -- which has acted as a national piggy bank, with homeowners borrowing and spending against rising house prices -- no longer looks so trustworthy. On this, more than on falling oil prices or a record Dow, hangs the economy's immediate fate.

The boom sowed its own destruction. Coupled with modestly higher interest rates, rising home values have priced more potential buyers out of the market. With fewer buyers, home construction, sales and prices have weakened. To service their loans, some consumers will curb their shopping.

For a while, there was a buyers' panic. By one survey, about 40 percent of houses bought in 2005 were second homes (28 percent for "investment," 12 percent for "vacation"). Dubious new mortgages -- interest-only or less -- aimed to maximize what a buyer could afford.

There's the endgame's true danger: If prices drop too much or too persistently, the damage to confidence and spending won't be easily neutralized.