But a St. Petersburg Times analysis of thousands of foreclosures in Hillsborough County, which has one of the highest default rates in Florida, shows individual homeowners are getting too much of the blame.
The truth is that real estate speculators and revenue-hungry local governments bear just as much of the responsibility — and maybe more — for the collapse in the housing market.
In Hillsborough, for example, investors and flippers account for almost half of the foreclosures filed from 2007 to 2009. Their purchases greatly inflated home prices, laying the foundation for the bust to come.
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