Reality check: more and more people are losing their jobs. We are currently in the deflationary period. Home values are on their way down and the Fed has increased money supply by trillions. What we are seeing are speculators and people so far unaffected by this disaster thinking that they found a bottom, very often, but not always, in low priced areas. Aside from cheerleaders for the government and banking interests, experts with no axe to grind tend to agree that things will get worse as more people lose their purchasing power. There is no light at the end of the tunnel no matter what we hear from our corporate media. Any slight increase in consumer confidence (based on useless statistics) is presented as evidence of good things to come. I wish things would get better in a hurry but it's not going to happen. Contrary to popular belief the banking elites made money from this depression (yes, depression). Just as a small example: former Countrywide executives have purchased "bad assets" from our government for dime on the dollar, after the government paid almost their full value to...Countrywide. People who are losing their homes to the banks are the ones who are bailing out those banks. It's a sham. I wouldn't expect things back to normal anytime soon, if ever. This is not a doom and gloom scenario (I'm not a pessimist by nature), just a realistic appraisal of our current situation.