The Case Shiller Home Price Index re-calculated for inflation in February 2013 dollars at 136.11 is today 11.6% elevated from the historic mean of 121.96 going back to . . . the 19th Century.
The 122 level on the index is a veritable polestar of housing prices for forty years from the 1950s until the recent housing bubble, with 140 representing the rare high water mark of prices in the 1980s . . . and the 1890s.
From a long term perspective prices today are elevated and represent a good time to sell. Prices are only low if you think the housing bubble is repeatable.
And it must not be forgotten that the data from the housing bubble itself contributes to elevated mean and median prices on the index, biasing them upward.
