For some perspective on the all-important US real estate market, today's chart illustrates the inflation-adjusted median price of a single-family home in the United States over the past 42 years. Not only did housing prices increase at a rapid rate from 1991 to 2005, the rate at which housing prices increased -- increased. All those gains were given back during the following 6.5 years. Over the past five months, however, the median price of a single-family home has surged by over 20% -- the biggest five-month gain on record (the data goes back to 1968). The sharp downward trend that began in mid-2005 is now over.
