Case Shiller: Housing Recovery Hoorah! (Or Is It a Decline?)

Once again, the news from the latest Case Shiller Home Price Index is all over the map. Home prices are up for the year! Home prices are down for February! Seasonally-adjusted home prices are up!

Here's what's really going on: Standard & Poor's Case Shiller Index has been flat since last fall.

Over the last three years, the index has moved boldly almost every month, rising or falling by several points or well over 1 percent.

But after the brief recovery in home prices last summer, the index has barely moved since September.

Changes to home prices have become so tiny that indicators like Case Shiller have become like Rorschach inkblots -- journalists and economists can see whatever they want in them, if they squint hard enough.