Nearly half of cities see home prices fall
Discover The Secrets An Excellent Business Credit Rating!!
Small Business Lines Of Credit- Credit For Your Business- Without A Personal Guarantee! 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! 75% Commissions!
Author: Marilyn Lewis
It's housing whiplash: The boom is biting back in the places where it ran highest and fastest just a couple of years ago, a government report for the second quarter shows. Nationally, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) said prices were essentially flat, growing just 0.1% from April through June, and nearly half of cities profiled showed declines for the quarter. Not since 1994 have home prices grown so little over a quarter. Compared with a year ago, prices were up 3.2%. But that number reveals nothing about the recent mortgage market turmoil, whose influence will show up in third-quarter numbers, revealed in late November. Also, the OFHEO index, while prized for its scope -- it tracks prices in 287 metro areas -- can appear rosier than some other instruments because it does not contain refinances or mortgages larger than $417,000. Of those 287 metro areas, 131 showed price declines for the quarter. Over the past four quarters, 61 areas reflect declines. But over five years, no metro area shows up in the red. "These newest data show price declines in many areas that were once at the center of the housing boom," said OFHEO chief economist Patrick Lawler. The worst declines were in California, Florida and Nevada, all centers of huge housing booms until recently, and in Michigan, which is reeling from epic job losses. Best and worst The biggest decline was in the Merced, Calif., area. Homes there lost 8.65% of their value over this time last year and 3.76% from the past quarter. Merced's experience underscores Lawler's point: Even with the whiplash correction, Merced prices show growth of nearly 90% in the last five years. Runners-up for the biggest decline included the California metro areas in and around Santa Barbara, Stockton, Salinas, Modesto, Yuba City, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Oxnard and Vallejo, and Reno, Nev., in the California orbit. Prices dived in Florida communities in and around Punta Gorda, Sarasota, Cape Coral, Palm Bay, Port St. Lucie and West Palm Beach.
Tags:
|
|
Nearly half of cities see home prices fall
A 287-city report finds the slowest growth in two decades, with metro areas in California and Florid... Throwing In the Towel on my Mortgage
Well I did my best, but after 30 years, I am throwing in the towel on my mortgages. Key Econmic Indicators
The US has the largest and most technologically powerful economy in the world, with a per capita Gro...
|
Print this page
