All the times over the past three or four years when we shook our heads and asked, "Sheesh, how high can housing prices go?"

It looks like we might finally be seeing the beginnings of an answer:

The median U.S. home sale price fell 4.1% ($17,603) year over year in April to $408,031. That's the biggest drop on record in dollar terms and the largest decline since January 2012 in percentage terms. April marked the third consecutive month of year-over-year declines following roughly a decade of increases.

The decline, to say the least, is kind of stunning:

There have been persistent concerns that we might see a crash akin to that which occurred in 2008. There are good reasons for doubting that that's going to happen, chief among them that the current overvaluation was due to a constraint of supply instead of (mostly) shoddy lending practices.

Indeed, as one Redfin economist puts it, the limited housing stock is actually helping establish a floor on price declines relative to the 2008 disaster:

Home prices are faltering due to sluggish homebuyer demand, but the shortage of homes for sale is preventing them from falling as much as they did in the Great Recession.

That's good and bad news, of course, depending on who's buying and who's selling. There will surely be plenty of homebuyers who will take advantage of the decline in prices; there will also surely be plenty of sellers who want to get much more for their homes but won't be able to.

The good news is that "many homes are still selling quickly and attracting multiple offers," again due to limited stock. Homes are selling much more slowly than they did a year ago, but still quickly relative to historical numbers.

A third of homes in April, meanwhile, were still "purchased for more than the final list price." That, again, is good news for buyers. Many sellers, understandably, are likely going to hold onto their homes until we see an upswing at some point.