Some information on the declining housing market and how the different regions are doing, from the Wall Street Journal:
December 30,2008
Home prices continued to drop as the economic downturn deepened further in October, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price indexes, a closely watched gauge of U.S. home prices, with home prices in the Sun Belt continuing to be hit hardest.
“The bear market continues; home prices are back to their March 2004 levels,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of S&P’s index committee. He added that both composite indexes and 14 of the 20 metropolitan areas are reporting new record declines. As of October, the 10-city index is down 25% from its mid-2006 peak and the 20-city is down 23%, Blitzer Said.
The indexes showed in prices in 10 major metropolitan areas fell 19% in October from a year earlier and 3.6% from September. The drop marks the 10-city index’s 13th straight monthly report of a record decline.
In 20 major metropolitan areas, home prices dropped 18% from the prior year, also a record, and 2.2% from September.
Month to month decliners were led by Detroit, which fell 4.5%, and San Francisco, which dropped 4.2%. Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Minneapolis, Tampa and Washington had their largest monthly declines on record.
For the seventh-straight month, no region was able to avoid a year-over-year price drop. Phoenix and Las Vegas were again the worst performers, with drops of 33% and 32%, respectively, from a year ago. San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles and San Diego followed, with declines between 27% and 31%.
Year-over-year, Dallas and Charlotte again had the best relative performance, with declines of 3% and 4.4%, respectively.
Three new markets joined the group of areas posting double digit declines from a year ago – Atlanta, Seattle and Portland showed drops of 11%, 10% and 10%, respectively.
Cleveland and Denver showed slight improvement in their year-over-year returns compared with last month’s report.
The Case-Shiller data came a week after a government report that sales of previously occupied homes plunged, dropping 8.6% in November, as the median price slid 13%, and the largest drop since the survey began in 1968. New home sales fell 2.9% in November; their fourth drop in a row, and prices remained below year-earlier levels.
The glut of housing remains as credit stays tight and the economic outlook remains bleak as mounting job losses have added more stress to U.S. households. Even intensified efforts to help borrowers stay in their homes have made little headway.
Source: Wall Street Journal, Kerry Grace
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