Well the era of interest free money is over, it was never going to last, and I don't see the Fed rates as 'excessive'; interest rates should always be higher than the inflation rate. The problem lies elsewhere, not in interest rates, which as you said fueled a fake artificial boom in house buying when rates were essentially free and most of the world was paying negative interest rates to savers, punishing them for being frugal, and rewarding Blue Sky gamblers. The largest demographic of buyers is real estate companies buying up houses for rental properties, not individual people buying houses to live in, and flippers. at least that is the case in the Dallas metroplex region.