The housing crash continues
Mortgages, The Economy, Real Estate May 13th, 2008
More bad news for the housing market. According to CNNMoney:
Home prices continue sharp descent
Steep drops in West. Heartland prices stabilize. Bottom line: 7.7% decline in first quarter.NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Single-family home prices dropped 7.7% in the first quarter in the largest year-over-year decline since the National Association of Realtors began reporting prices in 1982.
The median sales price fell to $196,300, down 4.8% compared with the last three months of 2007.
Sun-Belt cities were among the biggest losers. In California, Sacramento prices plummeted 29.2% to $258,500 compared with last year and Riverside prices fell 27.7% to $287,100. Prices in Las Vegas fell 20.2% to $247,600 and those in Phoenix dropped 15.4% to $222,200.
Midwestern cities, hard hit by factory closings, also suffered huge losses with Lansing, Mich., prices falling 26.9%.
The best performing market in the nation was Binghamtom, N.Y., where prices rose 11.8% to $109,700. Second was Peoria, Ill., up 10.4% to $119,000 and Spartanburg, S.C., where prices rose 10.2% to $130,300.
Hurting home prices were bigrises in foreclosure rates over the past 12 months, which threaten to get even worse. Delinquencies more than doubled over that time and more than 155,000 lost their homes in bank repossessions during the first three months of the year.
This is how AP reported the news:
WASHINGTON - Median home prices fell in two-thirds of the cities surveyed during the first three months of this year, a real estate trade group reported Tuesday.
The National Association of Realtors said that median prices for existing single-family homes dropped in 100 of 149 metropolitan areas in the January-March period, while 48 metropolitan areas saw prices increase and one reported no change.
Nationally, the median home price — the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less — fell to $196,300 in the first quarter, down by 7.7 percent from the same period a year ago, when the median sales price was $212,600.
The steep price decline was the latest indication of the problems facing the housing market, which is in a prolonged slump that has dragged down sales and home prices.
