Part of the reason these numbers may be hard to swallow, Mr. Leamer says, is that they do not capture the many differences between the economic conditions of the 1980s and today, or even 2002 and today. Income, mortgage rates and popular vacation spots have changed since then, as have myriad other factors deeply entwined with house prices.

Image Prospective home buyers must contend with higher mortgage rates and a less certain employment picture than in years past. Credit... Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Many experts look to price-to-rent ratios to estimate where house prices should be in a region. Because renting is a direct alternative to buying, and because rents tend to be less volatile than prices, rents are often considered to be a good shorthand for figuring out the intrinsic value of a home.

In the past decade, the price-to-rent ratio in many markets has exploded, indicating that people have been paying much more for their homes than the property is actually worth. From 1994 to 2002, for example, Phoenix had an average ratio of 11, according to data from Moody’s Economy.com. After peaking in the last quarter of 2002 at 22.5, it cooled to about 17.3 in the first quarter of this year.

This measure is popular but problematic because some economists say many of the homes that people rent (apartments in multifamily buildings) may not be comparable to the types of homes that people buy (single-family houses).

Another ratio that housing economists watch is the ratio of home prices to per-capita income. This is telling because it shows whether Americans can actually afford the houses in their area.

Looking at previous peaks and troughs in the income ratio can provide an idea of where the housing market will bottom in a particular city. In Boston, for example, the housing market peaked in the late 1980s around 11, and then hovered around 7.5 when it bottomed in the late 1990s, according to Mr. Case. This time around, it peaked at over 12, and in the first quarter of this year, it was just over 10.

Income and employment have had a particularly depressing effect on some regional housing markets.

In the Midwest, said Mr. Case, “they never had a boom. There was no bubble. There’s just a bust because employment’s dropping like a rock.” In Detroit, for example, the price to per-capita income ratio grew gradually from 1991 to about 2004, and has dropped steeply since then.