Some of you may have heard Clark say it will take until 2011 or 2015 (in bubble markets) for housing to recover. Those are scary years if you're sitting in a house and wondering when you'll have some value.

The reality is that we built way too many houses and condos than there were available families and people to occupy them. This trend was fed by speculative building, speculative buying and silly loans. The surplus is between 2 million and 10 million properties, depending on what measure you use.

Now the pendulum has swung the other way and new construction has almost stopped. One consequence of the swing has been that residential builders are experiencing a depression. Housing starts are the lowest they've been in 17 years and maybe even since WWII -- again depending on what measures you use.

Recently while driving through a rural area, Clark was stunned by the amount of scarred-earth neighborhoods he saw. Most of these abandoned half-built complexes were surrounded by chain-link fences. This is a natural part of the correction process as new supply gets choked off. Unfortunately, it also means builders are suffering mightily.

So if you are a first-time homebuyer or a move-up buyer, has there ever been a better time? Sure, you'll take a depressed price for your existing home if you're the latter, but this is a great time to move up in price point. What an opportunity! And if you buy a spec home, builders are offering some amazing incentives.

But hold on, you say, "Show me the money!" The assumption that mortgages are unavailable simply is not true. Lenders may require you to have real credit standing -- a very different scenario than the past few years -- but the money is there. Having a FICO score of 720 or above should make a variety of mortgage products available to you. FHA buyers may find additional leniency on the credit score front.