Interesting news the other day out of the Commerce Department and reported in the New York Times about new-home prices: The median price (the statistical point where half the houses are priced less but half are priced more) of a new house nosedived 9.7 percent last month when compared with the same month one year earlier. That price, by the way, is $217,100. The decrease represents the “biggest such drop since December 1970,” reports the Times. Now on the positive side, of course, this means new homes are available to buyers at cheaper prices than before. But, the larger picture, some experts say, is one of an economy that may be in for some turbulence ahead.

As the paper points out in an article by Jeremy Peters, the folks who build new houses are just trying to keep ahead of a market that seems to be weakening with each passing day. It was only two months ago when the new home prices were still on the rise.