Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, if you believe the results of a major national research firm, the answer would be yes. What they did is they went in and they looked in many markets across the country at current home prices. Then based on their analysis of supply and demand factors, they compared those home prices to what they think the home is actually worth. And then they decided whether current prices are overvaluing the real price or undervaluing. And what they found, what they decided, is that across the nation overwhelmingly, current home prices are actually under the true value of the home. Now there is only one city in North Carolina that's in this survey, and it was Charlotte. And they found, for example, based on their analysis, that current home prices in Charlotte are under the true value by 9 percent. So if you believe all this, it means that, yes, the drop in home prices should be over, and, indeed, perhaps the drop has overshot. However, there's one problem with this analysis, and that is that people do tend to overreact. For example, when home prices were going up, we now know that in many cases home prices overshot the actual true value of the home. And now it probably stands to reason that home prices are actually going down further than the true value. So although the economics of the situation indicate that homes may be at the bottom in terms of price, the reality may be that they're not."