"We have a new study just released by a couple economists who looked at this very question. They looked across many years and many countries, and they reached several conclusions," explains Dr. Walden, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

"They decided that the housing market goes through two distinct phases: what they call the calm phase, which is where prices are generally rising but there is little variability. That is, everyone is pretty well sure the price of their house is going to go up.

"The second phase they call the volatile phase," he adds. "This is where some prices are falling but some prices are continuing to rise, so there’s a lot of variability and there’s a lot of uncertainty.

"Now these economists argue that each of those phases lasts six years, and they argue that today we are probably in the volatile phase."