CME housing index futures track real estate country wide and in metro areas. Real estate is a large portion of the economy and these futures are an easy way to keep an eye on the market.
Could these indexes be topping out and consolidating? It already looks like San Francisco ( chart on the right side) could already be weaker than the rest of country in relative momentum.
Using these futures combined with ETFs like REZ and IYR can be very insightful for monitoring real estate.