Mick Weinstein The Week's Best Stock Blogs

There are three big pressures on this market: rising commodity prices (tied to dollar weakness/inflation), an ongoing credit crunch weighing on financials, and the sharp housing market downturn.

Last week we addressed the first with a roundup of opinion on the oil price spike. This week we turn to housing, as the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index indicator released Tuesday poured a bucket of cold water on those hoping the U.S. residential real estate had bottomed.

Bloggers once again cut through the official-speak and presented some straightforward conclusions that investors and homeowners will appreciate knowing. Click through links for the full articles:

• Calculated Risk presents three key graphs to explain where we're heading in U.S. residential real estate, concluding, "With existing home inventory at record levels, prices will probably continue to decline over the next few years - perhaps another 20% in real terms on a national basis."

• Macroeconomist James Hamilton uses Calculated Risk's analysis to explain the broader implications: "The reason for the gradual and predictable changes we see in house prices is that if a homeowner is mistakenly too hopeful about what his or her house can sell for... the home just sits on the market unsold until reality finally sinks in... the magnitude of subsequent declines in house prices is probably the single most important determinant of how many more homes end up in foreclosure. That in turn will determine how widespread the failures of major financial institutions become. This has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion."

• Tim Iacono, author of 'The Mess that Greenspan Made' blog, notes the 14.4% year-over-year decline for the 20-City Composite Index is the steepest decline on record, and provides a helpful city-by-city chart of the decline. How's your area doing?

• Heather Bell at Index Universe finds two "faint glimmerings" of hope in the Case-Shiller report: slightly positive returns for Charlotte, North Carolina and Dallas, Texas. Yet with this week's publication of the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, which hit a 16-year low, "it seems doubtful that consumers will be looking to buy much of anything, let alone a house. A real turnaround in housing does not appear to be in the cards anytime soon."

• Jeff Miller of NewArc Investments explains what a classic Nicolas Cage/Sarah Jessica Parker movie can teach us about supply in the current housing market.

• Kevin Price says "all but the most willfully obtuse Pollyannas now acknowledge that the real estate picture is bad... and likely to get worse before it gets better. Of course the universal caveat applies: Local markets will vary... the mad scramble to prop real estate up may or may not be effective, but regardless of its efficacy, its wisdom is doubtful at best."

• On the bright side, the popping of the real estate bubble means that housing affordability is near a three-year high, notes University of Michigan economist Mark Perry. This he believes should "continue to play an important role in the recovery process for the slumping real estate market. It's a buyer's market."

• Yet Barry Ritholtz finds the founder of Los Angeles-based homebuilder KB Homes predicting home prices will drop another 10 percent, and catches an 'erroneous homepage article in the Wall Street Journal' that suggests home buyers are jumping back into the market.

• If it's any consolation, FT Alphaville shows that U.K. home prices are in free fall also.

• For ongoing coverage of the housing market, check out blogger Judy Weil's 'Housing Bubble and Real Estate Market Tracker,' a carefully edited roundup of important items in this sector. In a recent edition, Weil finds that even the resilient luxury housing market has begun to see weakness - an ominous sign indeed.

Realtors, Kiss Your 6% Goodbye!

This week, the Justice Department and the National Association of Realtors reached a settlement in the antitrust case against the NAR's monopolistic hold on home listing information. It's a victory for Internet-based and discount listing services and another stake in the back of traditional brokers attempting to recover from this downturn.

• Media expert Jeff Jarvis says this means good riddance to real estate agents' familiar 6% commissions: "The only reason... that Realtors could hold onto their high commission for such little value and work is that they kept information away from the marketplace, making it inefficient. This new economy can now come to real estate sales as information become freer. Oh, it's not fully freed yet. But I do believe that the combination of this settlement and what it does to empower discount players and the depressed real estate market will combine to finally shove dynamite up Realtors' rears."

• Calculated Risk looks at brokers' commissions as a percentage of GDP, showing that commissions "soared" in recent years as a function of the housing bubble. But as of the first quarter of 2008, commissions declined. "Now, with prices falling, transactions falling, and more competition, it is likely that total commissions will fall further over the next few years. Tough times for many real estate agents."

Invest in Real Estate While Blood's on the Street?

Everyone knows top investors make their biggest killings by buying when a sector looks bleakest to everyone else. So is this the time to scoop up homebuilder stocks - or dip into the brick-and-mortar real estate market?

• London-based trader 'Macro Man' reminds us of "an old trading aphorism that is worth following for both veteran fund managers and market neophytes: picking bottoms gives you stinky fingers." He's highly skeptical of some Wall Street interpretations of the Case-Shiller report that suggest such a bottom "is coming closer" and given rising oil prices, concludes: "You'll pardon Macro Man if he tries to avoid picking bottoms in anything at the moment."

• Flooring company Mohawk Industries has seen its stock fall 30% in the past year as, well, the floor fell out from under the homebuilders. But some see Mohawk as an attractive pick now - here's why.

• DealBreaker notes that some of the very hedge funds that profited handsomely from the decline in homebuilder stocks are now buying big stakes in those very companies. But before you pull the trigger on these stocks alongside the hedgies, be warned: "you should not be fooled by their charity. In reality, these stone cold bastards are spending a few shekels now to prop up these poor, unfortunate housing stocks until they rally, and when they do, will short these pigs to death one more time."

• A couple of weeks ago, Graham Summers of GPS Capital Research still thought it wasn't too late for investors to short homebuilders, but speaking of hedge funds, you don't see a whole lot of homebuilders in leading hedge funds' top picks, compiled by Mebane Faber.

• Aside from your investment portfolio, at this stage, is it better to remain a renter or buy a house? Former investment banker Lloyd Sakazaki, Ph.D., presents tools for making that important decision.