"What I want to do here is talk about national house prices, so this will not necessarily translate into a local market. But if you look, for example, at simply the average price of homes sold nationally, both existing homes and new homes, prices have been declining. Right now they are going down at about a rate of 3 percent," he explains.

"One of the problems, though in the housing market, in comparing housing prices over time is that you can compare houses with different characteristics. Houses in general, for example, are getting bigger, more amenities.

"So another price index that tries to account for this shows that housing prices are still rising but they are rising at a slower rate," he adds. "They are going up about 3 percent now compared to 8 percent a year ago.

"So both of these statistics are saying the same thing: The housing market has slowed down; prices have softened. But it’s a difference of whether housing prices are going down absolutely or simply rising at a slower rate."