The purpose of this article is to present an analytical explanation of the American mortgage market crisis, starting from Minsky's financial instability hypothesis. We maintain that this crisis is a consequence of a real state speculative process which encouraged families to borrow in order to buy houses and resell them at higher prices. In this case, the financial entities had the capacity to provide liquidity to the requesting families, thanks to the financial innovations these entities had been introducing since the 1930s. Nonetheless, Minsky (1992) maintains, though his financial instability hypothesis, that the innovation in financial markets that characterizes modern capitalism carries with it the very fragility of these markets.