With home prices exceeding pre-bubble highs in many markets, more people are asking: Should we be concerned about another market bubble?

There are no guarantees, but this market looks significantly less frothy than it did in early 2008.

For one, mortgage-debt levels remain reasonable. Bank of America reports that mortgage debt as a percentage of real estate owned was at an all-time high of 63% just before the market-bubble burst. Today, it's down at 44%, which is a normalized and sustainable percentage.

A more obscure indicator also points to a bubble-free market. When markets get bubbly, they induce a tsunami of new participants. Using California as a proxy for the whole,CalculatedRiskBlog.com data show that the number of real estate agents peaked at the end of 2007. Today, the number of salesperson licenses is off 33.5% of the peak. The number is at March 2004 levels. In other words, people aren't blindly rushing into a perceived gold rush. That's a sign of market health.

In short, we don't see a market distorted by bubbles. To the contrary, we see a clearly sustainable market.

Information provided by Jessica Regan.

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