Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, this is really a question about numbers, so let's look at these numbers, and let's look at them for North Carolina. In 2006, the latest year for which we have full data, total economic activity in North Carolina amounted to about $350 billion. Now, if you look at construction of all types, the construction industry accounted for $7 billion of that. If you look at the buying and selling of property, that was another $17 billion. Now, if you look at financing, we don't have a breakdown of financing of real estate versus other things, but if we take all financing, that's $16 billion. So you add up those three numbers, it comes to $40 billion, $40 billion out of $350 billion is 11 percent of the total. Then, however, there's this so-called multiplier effect, the fact that if you lose income in one sector, that means that sector is going to be buying less from its suppliers - people are going to be spending less - and a typical multipler is 2. So that brings that 11 percent up to 22 percent, so you could say that real estate broadly defined could account for as much as 22 percent of the North Carolina economy. And I think in that context, you could say, yes, if that sector has some big problems, it could certainly affect the entire economy."