There are a lot of sellers sitting out there wondering whether to try and sell now or to hold off, at least until spring, in the hopes of seeing a better market then.

There's some data to suggest you might as well bite the bullet and do it now. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of home prices shows that the last real estate downturn, in the late 80s and early 90s, it took about seven years for the market to recover enough the prices began to rise again.

We're only a couple of years into this one. And, this downturn may play out differently. There are certainly plenty of interested parties, especially in an election year, who would like there to be some good news on the real estate front. But it seems unlikely that two years or maybe even three will be enough to move us back to rising prices given the amount of inventory out there.

And, you'll see an increase in the number of homes selling, I suspect, long before you see that begin to push up the prices of those homes.

So, if you're wondering whether to put your house on the market now or wait for the spring market the answer is that it probably makes very little difference in terms of the price you'll get for your home. What you should consider is that, as in most years, I expect the inventory to jump tremendously in the spring and the competition for the buyers will be much fiercer.

Maybe the real question is how will your home fare against the increased competition?