The USA Today reports on September 11th and the markets. "Since the attacks hit during a recession, it forced the Federal Reserve to slash short-term interest rates more than expected, says Liz Ann Sonders of Charles Schwab. Short-term rates hit an almost unheard of low of 1% in 2003, which helped inflate a housing bubble, she says. Now that bubble's deflation is haunting investors, she says."

The Street.com. "Could there have been a U.S. housing boom without the events of 9/11? It's a matter of much debate. Most experts agree that the U.S. housing boom was caused by a confluence of factors set in motion in 2001, including very low mortgage rates and a newfound desire for tangible assets like real estate."

"It's a mistake, though, to think that 9/11 alone created these factors. In fact, the Nasdaq's plunge in the spring of 2001 first put the ball in motion for the Federal Reserve's rate cuts and the flight to hard assets after millions of Americans saw their paper wealth evaporate in the dot-com bust."

"Prior to the attacks, the U.S. housing market was floundering with the rest of the economy. It's hard to imagine a time when housing wasn't a dominant topic on Americans' minds. But in 2000 and early 2001, housing sales were flat and residential spending was slow."

"In summer 2001, the U.S. faced a weak economy, a weak stock market and a meandering real estate market. The Fed had already cut short-term rates from 6.5% at the beginning of the year to 3%. 'The Fed was cutting rates because the economy had slowed dramatically; 9/11 most likely worsened that recession,' says economist Phillip Neuhart."

"Sales did not immediately boom, though. Five weeks after the attacks, Jonathan Miller, head of New York City real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel, thought about changing careers because the market was so slow. But near the end of 2001, Miller began noticing some of the beginnings of the boom."

"Around this time, Miller witnessed a five-way bidding war for a one-bedroom apartment in a nondoorman building in the East 50s, an unusual phenomenon, since this was not a luxury property but a fairly generic one."

"This trend began to repeat itself, and bidding wars became the norm in New York City and areas of California in late 2001."

"By February 2002, the National Association of Realtors was reporting that January's existing home-sales data had hit a record monthly high. By April 2002, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was already addressing the issue of a possible bubble forming in real estate prices."

"As the housing bubble deflates, no one knows for sure how dramatic the boom would have been if the terrible events of 9/11 had never happened. Still, it's hard to imagine any sort of housing boom happening without the dot-com bust first occurring."