The Mess Obama Inherited was Clinton Built

DailyBeast: The Housing Bubble? Clinton Helped Build That

CRA 1999 

...the decision to leave derivative trading unregulated, the decision to allow deposit-taking institutions to engage in proprietary trading, the pressure on banks to relax mortgage lending standards, the decision to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to grow enormously large thanks to the implicit subsidy of the government guarantee of their bonds and borrowing.

Clinton later acknowledged it was a bad deal. Republicans went along. In fact GOP Sens from Texas, Phil Gramm, shared culpability in CRA 99.
 Dubya tried to address it but was told to shut up and go away.. by...
You guessed it.. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd... and, I'd forgotten, Maxine Waters.

Added: The Libs on DailyBeast are going ballistic on this.  But whatever the take.. Blame it all on Phil Gramm, I dont care; the core is that you never saw {esp on radio commercials} 110% financing on no money down and relaxed lending standards until CRA 1999.
I even blame Dubya.. he should have made a big deal of it.