Experts say stock markets are like pricing the future, but with real estate in the mix as a viable alternative to speculating on corporate greed, fear and chicanery, a see-sawing stock market could be the best thing to happen to housing since lower interest rates.

Contrarian investor thinking has rocked the stock market, and there are some real causes for concern. Stocks began to struggle last week when a bullish jobs report showed a greater-than-expected gain in jobs (211,000) in March and a falling unemployment rate went to 4.7 percent from 4.8 percent in February. In addition, a surge in bond yields, which typically rise only when stocks go down, made investors worry that the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee isn't finished raising short-term interest rates. In fact, many economists thought the Fed would pause at 5 percent. Federal funds are already at 4.75 percent.

By Monday, blue chips made a rally but were beaten back by new fears -- that oil prices at $69 per barrel were their highest in more than nine weeks, and about to touch record highs. Gloomy news about the price of gas at the pump, up over 42 cents in the last six weeks, is that high prices will only get worse over the summer, and that we may have shortages and gas lines as we did in the 1970s. In addition, refineries will attempt to switch over to cleaner corn-derived ethanol additives from a contaminant-producing additive called MTBE.

Adding to worries is the geopolitical climate in OPEC members Iran and Nigeria, which are both impacting the price of oil. One news report suggested that if the U.S. loses Iranian oil, crude futures could skyrocket to $80 or $85 a barrel. Iran produces about 3.8 million barrels a day. Violence in OPEC member Nigeria has shut off more than a half a million barrels a day in supplies.

Higher oil costs could single-handedly bring the economic expansion to a standstill.

Meanwhile, home prices have not come down, although sales have softened, as many predicted would happen in 2006. In fact, sales appear to be on the upswing again, with only a slight dip in pending sales ahead of the crucial spring sales season.

According to the National Association of Realtors, existing-home sales rose in February following five months of decline. Total existing-home sales -- including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – increased 5.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.91 million units in February from an upwardly revised pace of 6.57 million in January, but were 0.3 percent below a 6.93 million-unit level in February 2005.

The fair weather gains were clouded by higher interest rates in February, which impacted consumer confidence. Pending home sales, as recorded by The Pending Home Sales Index based on contracts to buy signed in February, slipped slightly from 117.7 in February from 118.6 in January, 5.2 percent lower than February 2005.

David Lereah, NAR's chief economist, said most of the cooling in the housing market has already occurred.

"We can expect a historically strong housing market moving forward, earmarked by generally balanced conditions across the country and fairly stable levels of home sales with some month-to-month fluctuations," he said. "This normalization is healthy because it is taking a lot of the pressure off of the decision process for both home buyers and sellers -- pressure that was driving abnormal rates of price growth across much of the country over the last few years."

If the normalization of the housing market is already occurring, lack of opportunity to make money in a teetering stock market could reignite housing as a hedge against inflation, serving much the same purpose as bonds.