Requirements for mortgages today make getting the money you need for a home a lot harder than before the housing crash. However, it’s also quite a bit harder to get a mortgage than before the housing boom in the early 2000s (boom or bubble, your choice). Some researchers claim that more than 4 million mortgage applications fell short of the finish line between 2009 and 2013 that would have been approved had the standards from 2001 been used. Read more about this interesting insight here.