• We often talk about changes in home prices without adjusting for inflation (“nominal” changes in prices). But measuring changes in “real” terms—stripping out the impact of inflation—makes more sense.

• Most national indices show that home prices are higher than they were a year ago—but only without adjusting for inflation. In real terms, prices are lower.

• Buyers waiting for discounts in nominal terms could be frustrated—price falls measured this way are rare and short-lived.

One common way of measuring home prices is on a year-over-year basis, without adjusting for inflation. For example, the WSJ today reported that “on a year-over-year basis, [home prices] rose 0.7% in March”. This 0.7% figure does not account for inflation, which is running at around 5.5%. In “real” terms, home prices have fallen—and by over 4% (based on the widely-used Case-Shiller home price index).

In the past, home prices have fallen in inflation-adjusted terms pretty frequently: for several years in the mid 1970s, then in the early 80s, for much of the 1990s, throughout the “Great Financial Crisis”, and for several years after.

But in “nominal” terms—without the inflation adjustment—prices are still up compared to a year ago. Historically, falling nominal prices are rare. There have only been two periods in the last 50 years in which home prices fell in nominal terms—in the early 90s, and during the 2008 meltdown.

To be fair, some indices (like the one published by the National Association of Realtors) show prices have fallen since this time last year—even in nominal terms. But they’ve only dipped into negative territory by the smallest margin, and with prices now rising again month-over-month, this may not last.

The risk for people who want to buy a home but are waiting for meaningful drops in nominal prices is that they may be stuck waiting for a long time.