Nothing now creates more uncertainty for markets, and nothing has greater import for the future, than the course of house prices in the US.

US housing, of course, lit the fuse for the credit crisis. Among measures of housing, price is most important because of its link to the risk that owners abandon their homes, and thus to the risk to the value of the mortgage-backed securities that sparked the crisis. The best indicator of the coming rise in subprime delinquencies was the slowing in house price rises two years ago.