I wish I had more upvotes for this post. We are so busy debating the effects on banks loaning to each other that we sometimes ignore the responsible people here. The responsible way to buy a house is to save for it. The realistic way is to save a substantial portion and get a fixed-rate loan that you can definitely afford. It will never be impossible to get such a loan from a standard "Home Loan & Savings" bank, because savings accounts can support such loans (provided, of course, that people are saving, but I believe I established this with the "save a substantial portion" part).

Making low-rate-variable-interest credit less attainable is not a problem, it's a solution to our current problem that has everyone living beyond their means, with an unfathomable percentage of their earnings going to creditors.