Yet another report out today that home prices continue to fall -- including in the Detroit area. Some prices are the lowest they have been since 2000.

Instead of getting into yet another war, perhaps the president and our congress should focus on turning around the housing market.

But for the rest of us, we should face reality and accept that our home is NOT our most important investment.

Having said that, I will go on to say that while your home may not be such a hot deal, real estate is still an attractive investment. That is, of course, if you have cash or really good credit.

Many homeowners are unaware that they have really good credit in the equity of their own home. They may not be able to sell it, but they can borrow against it at very favorable rates.

Setting up a home equity loan account, especially if your mortgage is almost paid, is quite easy. And if you let the bank know about your other tangible assets, you may be quite surprised at how low the interest will be.

What is more, these accounts are the closest thing to cash. And that if what is needed to purchase cheap real estate today. If you can go directly to the bank or the homeowner on a short sale and say I have this amount of money, and we can close this deal this week, many will accept lowball bids for cash.

So stop crying about the lost paper profits of your home and figure out a way to leverage it into a real investment.