U.S. National Home Price Index Dropping Like A Rock S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price, released today, shows a record plummet of 18.2%. “…home prices are at their lowest level since the third quarter of 2003.” [CR]
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Talking about home prices on the national level is incredibly deceptive. Even breaking it down by state does not really give a meaningful example. Markets that were inflated with speculators and people buying what they can’t afford are still correcting themselves. For example, compare upstate New York vs downstate. In Rochester, NY, home values are still slowly and steadily rising while NYC is one of the areas where home prices are dropping the most.
@cabjf: Exactly. Where I am in Montgomery County, MD house prices were getting so ridiculous that they weren’t even appraising for the prices people bid. Buyers were paying out of pocket to cover the costs the banks wouldn’t.
Things have held *relatively* steady here in the Seattle area, down maybe to 2006 prices. Location is the biggest factor, with prices fluctating among neighborhoods.
@yagisencho: And timing, Seattle was a little slow to catch on to the whole RE market meltdown and massive overpricing of homes.
Seattle so far has been ~2 years behind the trend. I’m interested to see the trend up there in the coming months.
@JeffM: It’s still really, really ridiculous up here, but it’s continually declining so that’s good.
What pisses me off is every 2 years or so, our city readjusts taxes to reflect the rise in home prices. Now that home prices are plummeting, they are leaving the home values at their high value for tax purposes. The only way to challenge it is to pay $300-$500 out of your own pocket for an appraiser to come out.
So: Free to raise taxes, $500 to lower taxes.
@Saboth: And since people are less likely to sell in this market, there will be no recent data for your neighborhood, making it unlikely that you will get your property assessment lowered.
@Saboth: really? what pisses me off is that we were seeing back-to-back-to-back tax increases when times were good, but now that the s(#*& is starting to hit the fan, politicians are “giving us a break” by NOT raising taxes.
instead, they sent the assessors out & reassessed everyone’s property at 50% of value instead of 40%. no tax increase here, folks! move along!
Look at all these consumer reports links. If you love CR so much why don’t you marry them!
@Closed captioning provided by Homerjay: Can we get a disemvowelment on this one?
@Mad Dog McCree: @oneliketadow:
tongue-in-cheek
adjective & adverb
with ironic or flippant intent : [as adj. ] her delightful tongue-in-cheek humor | [as adv. ] “I swear there’s a female conspiracy against men!” he complained, tongue-in-cheek.
@Mad Dog McCree: @oneliketadow: I am embarrassed for both of you.
@Closed captioning provided by Homerjay: You do know that the publisher of CR now owns this blog, right?
Our area (southeastern Florida coast) has seen a 50% drop in home prices from “the peak”. FIVE ZERO PERCENT!!! A 3 bd 2 bth home which sold for $300K is now sitting on the market at $175K and won’t move until they lower the price to $150K.
OUCH!!!
Good, now regular people can afford traditional mortgages. GET OUT DEADBEATS! Buyers will be taking your foreclosed property soon!
@TecmoTech: If there are any left… That’s why i’m thinking it will take many many many years to get back to the price level we were at a year ago. If millions and millions of people foreclosed on their houses on their houses they will not be buying anything soon (because their credit will be shot).
@Mad Dog McCree:
How can there not be people left? If a million people are in foreclosure and there are 300 million in this country, that means that only .3% of the population is is in this mess.
Surely out of the 99.7% remaining, some are wanting to buy a reasonably priced home.
People fail to consider the huge amount of people who currently RENT who are not in a good position to BUY.
@TecmoTech: 99.7%? But I’m only 5- I can’t afford a howse!
@JeffM:
Slash 200 mill people off the available pool and the figure is still very low (1%). What now, who else do you want to eliminate?
Old people? Leave the pool at 50 million potential home buyers and this still is approximately affecting only 2%.
The numbers are not 100% accurate, but the alleged severity illustrates that foreclosures are only hurting a fraction of the population. I would say there are many people out there who can now afford homes and would be willing to buy.
I can’t believe anybody still falls for this crap. Fact: Your house is only worth what someone will give you for it. Fact: Home prices up or down means nothing. That only comes into play only if you sell. Fact: Homes where never meant to be for making money. So kept believing what these so experts say.
Good. Maybe when I am actually able to look into buying a house I can actually afford it. I was saying house prices were ridiculous when I was in high school.
That’s weird, my parents house has been rising in value since.. well since they bought it.
@Oranges w/ Cheese:
Where is it? Unless it’s in one of those rare communities that has real, strong, growth in the actual demand for housing…with people coming to the area and wages high enough for people to afford to buy, chances are it is declining. Even if it IS in an area like that, odds are strong that it peaked, dropped down to levels above where it was 4 or 5 years ago, and is stagnating. (Like my dad’s in northern AZ)
Regardless, the decline isn’t going to stop until the national average is around ~150K, at least.
@TechnoDestructo: It may have lost value from a peak, but it is still well above what they paid initially and above their remaining mortgage balance.
They bought it in 1998 for $151,000.. I think it got up to something like $250,000? They’ve recently redone the roof and are looking to re-do the windows as well which may be helping the value along.
This is in Northwest Florida, its by an air-force base which may also be helping – but the two story house across from them recently (in the last… 15 months?) sold for $600,000 which I think was ridiculous.
Hurddddat-I’m going to be buying within the next year, this crappy economy couldn’t have come at a better time
Sorry house owners, it’s no offense and I feel for your situation.
But.
Keep dropping, home prices. Another 75% drop from here and they’ll be APPROACHING a fair price for HUMANS to afford instead of being only for the super-rich or the insane (the latter being the ones who fell for the adjustable rate and other “creative” mortgages).
In 1955 you could have bought a nice house very near to a major city for $12,000, which was about 3x the median annual income of $4,333. (source)
In 2006 the median annual income was $58,000 (pretty sure it hasn’t gone up since ’06, either) and those same houses STILL cost half a million dollars. That is about TEN YEARS INCOME for someone making the median. Sorry homeowners, there’s no reason why houses are three times as precious as they were 50 years ago.