What's another high-end stat, along with a decline in sales of apartments in the heart of New York City - - Manhattan - - and declining U.S. BMW sales, that doesn't bode well for the U.S. economy? A home price decline in posh and stately Greenwich, Connecticut.

Home prices in 2008 in Greenwich declined the most in three decades, and the number of homes plunged by more than a third, as the town's real estate began to show the effects of financial sector cutbacks, Bloomberg News reported, citing data compiled Prudential Connecticut Realty.

Greenwich's 2008 median home price dropped 7% to $1.95 million - - the largest percentage decline since 1977 - - with single family homes sales plummeting to 460 from 726, Prudential said, Bloomberg reported.

Tony Greenwich sets the tone

With its large homes, ample land, quaint shoreline, and short, 50-minute train commute to Manhattan, Greenwich, for generations, has been a preferred suburb of executives of some the world largest multinational corporations who work in New York City. More recently, Greenwich has become the de-facto 'hedge fund capital of America.'

Is there any more important rule in real estate than, "location, location, location"? In case you've been living under a rock, that's the answer to the question, "What are the three most important factors in buying a home?" The basic idea is that it's not the Sub-Zero fridge, the spacious deck, or the fancy faucets that dictate whether a home will hold its value. What matters most is where it's located.

USA Today proves the point yet again today with new findings from a Coldwell Banker survey. The survey looked at similar houses -- all with four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a family room and a two car garage -- and compares how much they cost in 384 markets around the world.

The most affordable place in the U.S. is Minot, North Dakota, where a four-bedroom home lists for $132,000. The least? Beverly Hills, Calif, where the price tag is $1.8 million. Take the trends abroad and you can pay $1.8 million for that kind of house in Milan, Italy, or just $56,500 in Bogota, Columbia. The average sale price in the U.S. is $424,000 (you can parse all the data here).

What good does this information do you? Well, if you just paid $2 million for a split-level in Greenwich, Conn., and are worried you bought at the peak, this data may make you feel better. At least you bought in a premium location that will hopefully hold its value.

Better yet, if you are thinking of trading down, a handy tool at the Coldwell Banker site allows you to crunch this data and see how much a home comparable to your own would cost anywhere else in the country. For example, you can trade in that $2 million Greenwich home for a similar $278,000 house in Amarillo, Texas, should you one day decide to head to cattle country with plenty of free cash in hand.

The reason the market has fallen so much in the last month may not be what you think. Today I spoke with a senior investment strategist for a $1 trillion mutual fund complex. In his view, the market's recent fall has less to do with concerns about inflation and much more to do with hedge fund trading.

Specifically, he thinks that hedge funds -- whose managers Vanity Fair reports are building enormous Greenwich, Conn. spreads -- have been borrowing money to buy commodities such as gold, copper, and oil as well as real estate and emerging markets stocks. They mistakenly assumed that the Fed would continue to act as though inflation was benign.

When Fed Chief Ben Bernanke expressed concern about inflation, the hedge funds' leveraged commodity bets suddenly went sour. The dollar toned up and commodities tumbled -- forcing the hedge funds to cover their leveraged bets by selling their long positions in commodities. Gold has tumbled 19% to $591 an ounce since reaching a 26-year peak in May. The Indian Sensex market index has lost over 25% of its value -- plunging from 12,612 on May 10 to 8,994 on June 13.