While the past few years have been painful in the U.S. housing market, it’s not the first time the nation has seen tumult in real estate. For decades, economic shifts have sent the U.S. housing market on a roller coaster ride from bust to boom and back to bust again, historians say.

If you are an 80-year-old American, it is likely that you will never forget the impact of financial ruin caused by the Great Depression, when hundreds of thousands of unemployed homeowners lost their homes to the banks in foreclosures.

In the late 1940s another shift occurred. America experienced a great housing shortage when hundreds of thousands of GIs came home from World War II. Unprecedented housing demand and construction of the nation’s expressway system sparked a home-construction boom and the growth of suburbia in the 1950s and 1960s.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the economic gears shifted again. Inflation was rampant and housing again hit the skids when Reaganomics pushed mortgage rates to 18 percent in 1981 and a deep housing recession followed.

By the late 1990s, mortgage rates were affordable again and housing was booming. Home prices soared and buyers were using their houses like cash stations, refinancing to extract dollars, then flipping and purchasing bigger McMansions.

When the housing bubble popped in 2008, the roller coaster plunged again and the government called it the “Great Recession.” The blame was focused on the eroding standards for mortgage lending.

The toxic subprime home loans were packaged into securities, and when buyers couldn’t meet their payments, the loans fell into delinquency and this had devastating effects throughout the financing system. In addition, the explosion of Wall Street trading in derivatives helped fuel the crisis and spread it to investors worldwide.

In 2009, the government pumped more than $787 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funding into the banking system and Wall Street to keep the economy from collapsing into depression.

Now here we are in 2011, sitting at the bottom of housing’s roller coaster ride. Home and condo prices are incredibly affordable and mortgage rates are in the 4 percent range, a 50-year low. So, isn’t it time for flocks of people to buy homes and condominiums?

“Those of us who think we can participate in a housing market recovery sooner rather than later just got welcome support from some industry experts,” noted Marc L. Kramer, senior residential lender at Wintrust Mortgage, who cited a recent report by Fortune magazine on CNNMoney.com.

“After four years of plunging home prices, the report said the most attractive asset class in America is housing,” noted Kramer.

The research firm Metrostudy, which tracks new-home inventories for 65 percent of the U.S. market, reports that the steep drop in construction over the last few years has reversed the housing supply glut. The firm believes the low inventory should eventually lead to higher prices.

Fortune also cited a new study from a major bank that found homeowners now pay only 9.8 percent of their income in after-tax mortgage, tax and insurance payments, down from a hefty 17.2 percent at the 2007 peak.

“This means it’s now cheaper to pay a mortgage and the other major homeowner costs than it is to rent the same house in 28 out of 54 major markets,” Kramer said.

Fortune further reported that where existing home inventories average close to seven months, a modest boost in demand will result in solid gains in home prices and new construction.

“This could happen quickly in markets now showing good job growth,” noted Kramer. “Moody’s Analytics forecasts prices going up three to four points faster than inflation over the next few years in virtually all such markets. They see home prices rising with rents, with apartments in short supply.”

Of course, the housing recovery still requires job creation and consumer confidence returning back to normal, but we finally seem to be headed in that direction, Kramer said.

Don DeBat’s weekly real estate column is syndicated by DeBat Media Services. For more home-buying information visit his website at: www.dondebat.net.