There are a few factors that drive real estate prices higher in a normal market. At the top of the list are the performance of the local economy, job growth, and population growth. While all of this is true in a normal market: today's real estate market is anything but normal. As many fewer people can now obtain loans -- some legitimately and some not -- and as borrowers with loans greater than $417K must now pay much higher interest rates due to market liquidity problems, the national real estate market remains highly stressed. Despite these problems, the Austin market seems . . .