Home appreciation continues move in right direction.

With signs of a slowdown now evident in key segments of the national economy, should you be waiting for the next shoe to drop -- a decline in the rate of appreciation in the value of your home?

Maybe. But the federal agency that tracks home value changes says in a new study that there are virtually no statistical signs yet that the housing appreciation boom is weakening. In fact, the latest quarterly data from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), released Thursday (March 1), reveal that the year 2000 was even hotter than reported earlier -- an 8.1 percent average gain in the resale value of existing homes across the country.

The only hint of possible cooling ahead came in the agency's appreciation data for the final …