NEW YORK - November 29, 2011 - Home prices across the nation are now right back where they were at the beginning of 2003. All that was gained is largely now lost, and the effect on home ownership could continue for decades.

"Consumer attitudes have gotten a lot more negative about long-term commitment," said Standard and Poors' David Blitzer, after reporting home prices through September had fallen a deeper-than-expected 3.9% compared to the third quarter of 2010. "They dropped to new lows. This takes them below the point we saw in 2009, where briefly we all thought this thing was about to turn around."

Every time we think things are turning around in the housing market, we get hit with some new problem, like last year's so-called "robo-signing" foreclosure paperwork scandal, which managed to stall the cleansing of distress in the market for over a year. Now that foreclosures are ramping up again, prices are again dropping.

All this could push home ownership down to levels not seen at least since before the Census began tracking this data in 1963. Home ownership soared to 70% in 2005, but it could fall to 62% by 2015, according to the number crunchers at John Burns Real Estate Consulting. They suggest that the effect of foreclosures drops home ownership by 5.6%, and cyclical trends, like poor consumer confidence, tightening mortgage credit and the weak economy drop it by 3%. Positive demographic trends would only offset that by 0.7%.

"People's memories take a while to fade," says John Burns. "It [also] takes a while to rebuild your balance sheet after a (Depr)ession, and that's what many people need to do before they again buy homes. Homeowners need to build back up to have a down payment for their next house, and renters will need to save more than before to become homeowners."