> I first heard talk about the upcoming housing bubble burst in 2003, five years before the bubble actually burst.

2006 is when the housing bubble was pierced. It took another couple of years to fully deflate, so bursting isn't likely the best depiction of the event, but typically when we talk about bubbles bursting we refer to the first moment of weakness, not the tail end.

It was the securities market that crashed fast and hard five years later. The housing market crash played a role in that happening, I'm sure, but isn't housing itself.

I first learned what 'no doc' loans where in 2004. I worked inside a mortgage company for a while, and was a bit shocked by some of the numbers I saw. BUT... I don't think a housing bubble/crash was a foregone conclusion in 2003/2004, but warning signs were there and got louder over time.

The housing bubble occupied the front cover of the economist several times in 2004.