Case-Shiller Index: 3 Reasons to Blow It Off

We like to panic as much as the next homeowner, but reading the proclamations each month uttered by the Great Gods of Real Estate -- Case and Shiller -- is simply growing wearisome.

Nobody really knows what to make of all the contradictory statistics and reports about home sales and prices that are released every few nanoseconds, but the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller index -- like the one this week that said home prices saw a puny 1 percent uptick from April 2011 -- is the one that always grabs the public's solemn attention and causes that kick-in-the-gut feeling.

Here are three reasons why the report is pretty meaningless to a homeowner: