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

"Well, things are looking up a little bit in the housing market. I think there's still some major issues down the road. One is what's called mortgage resets. This is for people who took out adjustable rate mortgages, and oftentimes, they took those out at very low rates. And then when they reset, they often find they reset to a higher rate, and that could spark a new round of foreclosures. And we have in the next couple of years a large number of mortgage resets coming on line, so it's going to depend upon the condition of the economy, what the level of interest rates are at that point, whether those mortgage resets will be a negative for the economy. I think another issue is appreciation, price appreciation. We have seen housing prices for virtually the first time in history on a large scale basis fall over the last two years, by some measures by anywhere between 25 to 33 percent. And most economists think that we will eventually see housing prices bottom out, but appreciation will not go back to the double digit rates that we had in the mid part of this decade but maybe to a more modest 2, 3 or 4 percent. That's going to put a continuing restraint on consumer buying."