RJ and Makay

In an odd trend that has persisted for several years now, consumers have been keeping up with their credit card payments even when they're behind on their mortgage, says credit reporting firm TransUnion.

Among consumers with a mortgage and at least one credit card in the fourth quarter of 2010, 7% were 30 or more days late on the mortgage but current on their credit card, TransUnion reports. That rate was about 4% in the first quarter of 2008, when the trend first appeared nationally.

It may be quite some time before the housing market fully recovers, suggest new data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell dramatically in February and home prices declined to their lowest level in nearly nine years, the data show.

Specifically, February sales fell 9.6% month over month to an annualized rate of 4.88 million units after three straight months of gains. The percentage decline was the largest since July. "The housing market is still very depressed and a major drag on the economy, especially household net worth," observes Chris Christopher, a senior economist at IHS Global Insight.

Home prices in most major U.S. cities have fallen to their lowest levels since the housing bubble burst, shows the latest reading of the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index. The 20-city index fell 1% from November to December, and Washington was the only city in the index to see its home prices rise during that period.

The overall decline in the index was the sixth in as many months and the eighth in the past 11 months. Furthermore, in December, housing prices in 11 of the cities in the index hit their lowest point since the housing bust of 2006 and 2007. Those cities were Atlanta, Charlotte, NC, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Portland, OR, Seattle, and Tampa, FL.