real estate bubble
washington city paper's brian beutler has written a most interesting article on the current state and future of DC's real estate bubble.
by the way, a real-estate bubble or property bubble (or housing bubble for residential markets) is a type of economic bubble that occurs periodically in local or global real estate markets. it is characterized by rapid increases in the valuations of real property such as housing until they reach unsustainable levels relative to incomes and other economic indicators, followed by rapid decreases that can result in many owners holding negative equity (a mortgage debt higher than the value of the property).
