ROMANS: It's 25 minutes past the hour. Welcome back to STARTING POINT. I'm Christine Romans minding your business this morning. U.S. markets closed lower yesterday while fiscal cliff talks stalled -- nothing like a 49-second rebuttal to the president to knock stocks down. U.S. futures are up slightly this morning. The fiscal cliff tango continues. Meanwhile the IRS is warning the fiscal cliff could wreak havoc on the tax system unless Congress acts soon. In particular, this alternative minimum tax patch is a real problem. It's legislation that prevents middle class earners from getting slammed with a higher tax Bill. Every year Congress extends a patch. The AMT patch expires at the ending of this year. So unless Congress acts before December 31st, 30 million taxpayers could pay higher taxes as a result and 100 million tax return filings and refunds could be delayed. Tax season begins in just a couple of weeks and they still haven't figured this out. Also, here's the big news. Home values grew 2.5 percent over the last year, the biggest annual increase in home prices since 2006. Zillo has these numbers. They say the last time home values stood where they are now, May, 2004. We're going to get existing home sales data at 10:00 a.m. eastern. What I can tell you about home prices in the year, you guys, is if you live in Chicago, Atlanta, Philly or New York, home prices did not rise. Some of the place that had big, big falls had big rises but not for some of those towns like Atlanta, Philly, Chicago, New York, just flat.</s>O'BRIEN: Christine, thank you. We're going to talk a little bit about a dangerous storm that's dumping snow and also bringing potential tornados to the south. We'll have a live weather update for you coming up next. Then it was another day of terrible goodbyes to small children as they were laid to rest. We'll take you back to Newtown, Connecticut, as the community there is honoring the memory of the victims. That's straight ahead.
Home Values Increase from Previous Year