“The boom and bust to house prices and housing returns over the past 12 years is likely un-precedented in the United States. According to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and MacroMarkets LLC, real house prices in the United States increased by about 6-1/2 percent per year over the 1997-2006 period. To put this growth in context, over the decade spanning 1987-1996, the same data sources suggest that real house prices in the United States did not increase at all; and, the available evidence suggests that real house prices in the United States increased by less than 2 percent per year in real terms over the 1950 to 1996 period (Davis and Heathcote 2007, Shiller 2005). From year-end 2006 through the first quarter of 2009, real house prices have fallen by 34 percent,…”