"Home prices rose for the seventh straight month in December..." - Builder Magazine

What does it mean when home prices rise in a single month?  Not much.  But in this article we learn that this is the 7th month in a row, which is very significant:

Home prices rise 0.3 percent in December - Builder Magazine

The S&P/Case-Shiller index tells us that home prices maxed out in May of 2006, nearly four years ago.  So housing declines continued for about three years, then leveled out nationwide in the middle of 2009. 

Does that signal a big runup soon?
  No.  But homeowners will start to see their home equity begin to recover as home values gradually rise.

What would it take for a stronger recovery?  The reintroduction of private (non-FHA) mortgage lending while rates and taxation remain low. With this, the higher end of the market could begin its own recovery, which is stalled at present by the lack of jumbo mortgage funds.

What would it take for a weaker recovery? The Feds cold derail a recovery by boosting taxes, rates, or spending (the latter by passing wildly inefficient social legislation they've so far managed to resist), causing affordability and jobs to remain scarce.  That would kick the economy while it's down, and the real estate recovery, inexorably tied to affordability and consumer expectations, would languish. - David