You would have to go all the way back to the middle of 2003 -- almost nine years ago -- to find U.S. home prices as low as they have been recently.
Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller composite index tracks home prices in 20 metropolitan areas around the country.
It recently discovered that prices for single-family homes fell yet again in late 2011. Prices near the end of last year were down almost 4 percent from late 2010 -- when home prices were already very low because of the housing market collapse.
The biggest drop nationwide was in Atlanta -- which had an astonishing home price decline of 12 percent from one year before. In fact, the price of an entry-level home in the Atlanta area dropped by almost one-third last year!
The glut of existing homes may be a boon to buyers, but it suppresses the economically important construction of new homes, which generates lots of jobs and tax revenue.
It is painfully evident that the housing market is still moving in the wrong direction, to our nation's detriment.