Want to start the new year with a depressing thought?

David Blitzer, who chairs S&P's Index Committee, has one.

"Take inflation out of home prices and we’re back to 2001 – 10 years ago," Blitzer wrote.

Using the Case-Schiller 10-city index, which S&P publishes and deflating it by the Consumer Price Index, "One sees that prices haven’t gotten much beyond where they were in early 2001. In fact, allowing for a dip in home prices in the 1990s when inflation rose faster than houses, we’re almost back to 1989."

It's a good reason to look ahead, not behind.