Home prices continue to rise, and new building is frenetic – but that's typical of the last gasps of a bubble.

At the same time, those on the inside at major home-building companies are selling shares of their companies' stock – and at a brisk pace.

Do they sense that the housing bubble is about to burst?

We think they know better than most.

For the first half of this year, executives at home-building companies – those with market caps exceeding $500 million – sold off a total of $671 million worth of stock, compared to $189 million for the same period last year, according to Forbes magazine.

Robert and Bruce Toll, co-founders of Pennsylvania-based builder Toll Brothers, have unloaded $441 million worth of stock since last November. And this year, execs at home-building firm NVR have sold $125.4 million worth of stock – more than double the $54.3 million they unloaded in the first half of 2004.

Hovnanian Enterprises executives have dumped $39.5 million in stock this year, after selling just $900,000 worth in the same period for 2004, while Lennar execs have cashed out for $32.5 million – eight times the total sell-off from the first six months of last year.

Forbes reports, "Makes you wonder if there's anything to the Fed chairman's repeated mumblings about 'froth' in the housing market."

Our guess is that if the insiders knew their stock would continue to rise and the real estate run-up would continue, they wouldn't be unloading their shares in such massive amounts.

Clearly, higher rates will drive the "froth" out of the market.

The Fed Fund rate is now up to 3.5 percent – at its highest level in almost four years.

The Fed move Tuesday was sure to be followed by an announcement from commercial banks that they were increasing their prime rate – the benchmark for millions of consumer and business loans – by a similar quarter-point.

That would put the prime at 6.5 percent, its highest point in four years.

The Fed has raised interest rates at every one of its meetings going back to June 2004, when the Fed Fund rate (the interest that banks charge each other) stood at a 46-year low of 1 percent.

As MoneyNews reported Tuesday, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan is acting to raise long-term interest rates to stop the housing bubble. For months, long-term rates actually decreased. But that trend has been changing.

The Fed's desire to further increase rates will force long-term and mortgage rates up.

And that will kill the U.S. housing market.

Be prepared.

NewsMax's Financial Intelligence Report with Sir John Templeton first warned of these interest rate hikes and the coming housing bust.

Templeton, considered to be one of the world's greatest investors, believes real estate prices in some U.S. markets could fall by an astounding 50 percent.

The housing crash will have profound effects not only on real estate but also on your stocks, bonds and other investments.

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