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| Economy |
| US house prices 'in record fall' |
| 2009-04-01 |
| House prices in the 20 largest US cities have fallen by a record 19 per cent in January from a year ago, according to a private survey. A separate index of home prices in the 10 largest metropolitan areas also posted a record decline, of 19.4 per cent since January 2008, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller survey said on Tuesday. "There are very few bright spots that one can see in the data. Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path," David Blitzer, head of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, said. The three worst-hit cities were the former flourishing towns of Phoenix, Arizona, where prices fell by 35 per cent; Las Vegas (down 32.5 per cent) and San Francisco (down 32.4 per cent). Dallas, Denver and Cleveland showed the smallest declines of around five per cent in January compared to the same period last year, the survey said. House prices in the 20-city index have plummeted 29 per cent from their peak in summer 2006, while the 10-city index has fallen by 30 per cent. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 Women, children, and the poor hardest.... Wait a sec? Who's the victim here, I gotta know so I know who to cry for. Wow, being such sensitive liberal is really hard sometimes. |
| Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 2009-04-01 14:01 |
| #5 Does it really take anyone at the bank or lending institution much effort to find out what the median income is for an application locale, then do the math of 10/20% down and 30-40% of the income for housing to figure out what is a 'sustainable' housing price. Even calculating growth by raising the bar to 10/20% above that median, a honest analyst still couldn't justify the loans that banks et al were writing. All parties ignored proven principles. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-04-01 09:29 |
| #4 'Record fall' usually comes after 'record inflation' when it comes to real estate. Anyone who thought that their house's value had tripled or quadrupled permanently has no knowledge or history. At some point, with real estate as well as everything else, we'll get to an organic base price and organic increases/decreases based upon location and a healthy (not overblown or blown apart) economy. I'm guessing that it won't be for another year or two at minimum nationally. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2009-04-01 06:35 |
| #3 Actually what I've personally found as good rule of thumb to find out if property is overpriced in your area is look at rental income versus property pricing on triplexes and duplexes in your area. For example if a triplex in your area costs 1 million to buy and takes about 30 years to pay off from just the rent (in the best case analysis) you're WAAAAY overpriced for the property there. |
| Posted by: Valentine 2009-04-01 04:40 |
| #2 Are the average prices affordable to the average homebuyer yet? Didn't think so. Wake me up when they get to that point. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-04-01 02:33 |
| #1 HMMMMMMM, thought so, but CNN + CNBC still repor sales going for pre-Recession = US$500K-or-Higher prices. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-04-01 00:50 |