Median home prices fell nationwide
in 4Q
By ALAN ZIBEL - 02/12/2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — Home prices fell in nearly nine out of every
10 U.S. cities in the fourth quarter of last year as low-cost
foreclosures flooded the market and the housing market's decline
spread nationwide.
The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that median
sales prices of existing homes declined in 134 out of 153
metropolitan areas compared with the same period in 2007. Sales
fell in all but six states.
Nationwide, the median sales price was $180,100, down 12
percent from a year ago. But price declines of 30 percent or more
were found in much of California, plus parts of Michigan, Florida,
Arizona and Nevada. The biggest drop, of more than 50 percent, was
in Fort Myers, Fla.
President Barack Obama visited Fort Myers earlier this week in
an effort to sell his economic rescue package, which lawmakers are
preparing to send to his desk by Friday.
The states in which sales rose — Nevada, California, Arizona,
Florida, Minnesota and Virginia — are places where buyers have
been able to snap up foreclosed homes at a bargain. Sales more
than doubled in Nevada, rose 85 percent in California, and nearly
43 percent in Arizona.
"We see a pattern of strong sales gains, particularly in lower
price homes, in areas with price declines resulting from
foreclosures," Lawrence Yun, the trade group's chief economist,
said in a prepared statement.
In California and Florida, sales of distressed properties
accounted for about two-thirds of all sales, compared with about
45 percent nationally.
A nasty brew of strict lending standards, falling home values,
soaring foreclosures and a severe recession is filtering through
the housing market.
Nationwide, more than 274,000 homes received at least one
foreclosure-related notice in January, according to RealtyTrac
Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based foreclosure listing service. That
was down 10 percent from December, but still up 18 percent from
the same month a year ago. The numbers would have been higher if
not for efforts to stall the foreclosure process.
More than 2 million American homeowners faced foreclosure
proceedings last year, and that number could soar as high as 10
million in the coming years depending on the severity of the
recession, according to a report last month by Credit Suisse.
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