You probably did get some support to house prices from the credit, and as that wears off house prices may fall off a little bit. We don’t expect house prices to pick up noticeably for a long time. If the recovery continues, I expect home sales to pick up with the labor market.

—Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase: via Bloomberg

The housing market may be in better shape than this time last year; but, when you look at recent trendsthere are signs of some renewed weakening in home prices. In the past several months we have seen some relatively weak reports across many of the markets we cover. Thirteen MSAs and the two Composites saw their prices drop in March over February. Boston was flat. The National Composite fell by 3.2% compared to the previous quarter and the two Composites are down for the sixth consecutive month. While year-over-year results for the National Composite, 18 of the 20 MSAs and the two Composites improved, the most recent monthly data are not as encouraging. It is especially disappointing that the improvement we saw in sales and starts in March did not find its way to home prices. Now that the tax incentive ended on April 30th, we don’t expect to see a boost in relative demand.

—David M. Blitzer, Chairman of theIndex Committee at Standard & Poor’s: via S&P

It will take some time before we are back to more healthy levels for the housing market. We see a very gradual recovery from very depressed levels. The low rates help to support affordability…inventory in general will continue to add downside pressure to prices.

—Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Group in New York, had projected sales would rise to a 5.7 million rate for Monday’s home-purchase data: via Bloomberg

…meanwhile..in the credit marketsThis is a quintessential liquidity crisis. It’s not inconceivable to imagine a situation where the markets behave so poorly, the liquidity behaves so badly, and risk-tolerance just evaporates that — particularly in Europe — consumers contract, businesses stop hiring and stop investing, and economic activity halts.

—William Cunningham, head of credit strategies and fixed-income research at Boston-based State Street Corp, $2 trillion AUM: via Bloomberg

We’re seeing risk aversion intensifying, as well as a widening of risk aversion across asset classes. That raises concern over counterparty risk and is pushing rates higher in the interbank market.

—Peter Chatwell, interest-rate strategist, Credit Agricole, London: via Bloomberg