House Prices Are Not Depressed

 

A NYT article on President Obama's latest program to help underwater homeowners included the assertion:

"an increasing number of economists worry that depressed housing prices and underwater borrowers are holding back a broader recovery."

Actually, the United States does not have depressed housing prices. According to the Case Schiller national house price index, inflation adjusted house prices are still more than 9 percent above their 1996 level. The problem was that the country had a...