Home prices fall in half of US cities

PolitiSUCK
1

Home prices fall in half of US cities
Fri Nov 12, 2010 12:50AM

http://previous.presstv.ir/photo/20101111/shoaran20101111230054390.jpgMany homes that were put up for sale have now been removed due to a fall in house prices and bank repossessions.
Home prices in half of the US have plunged in third quarter the current year as banks stepped up property repossessions.

There was a fall in the mean price of a single-family home in 76 of 155 US metropolitan areas, the National Association of Realtors said in a report on Thursday, Bloomberg reported.

House prices in Florida, slumped 20 percent from last year, showing the largest decline overall. There was a 15 percent drop in prices in the cities of Palm Bay, Florida, and Tucson, Arizona. The mean price of US homes fell 0.2 percent to $177,900.

The US housing market is struggling as lenders continue to seize a record number of properties. This under pressure financial sector is also being hindered by a 26-year high in unemployment figures.

Banks repossessed more than 288,345 homes in the period covered by the Realtors report, up 22 percent from a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac Inc., a data firm in Irvine, California.

The foreclosures caused by homes being seized boost the supply of available homes and, therefore, reduce prices as properties are then sold at a discounted price to force quick sales.

“The bottom has proven to be quite elusive,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist of data firm Zillow.com in Seattle. “There could be another five percent coming off the national market” as prices decline further, he said.

There was some positive news for the US housing market though as the mean price of a single-family home in the New York metropolitan area climbed 2.8 percent in the third quarter.

Edison and New Jersey showed 3.5 percent gains and prices in Boston rose 5.3 percent, according to the report.

The largest increases in house prices were seen in Burlington and Vermont, where an 18-percent overall rise in home value was recorded.

In a separate report today, the Realtors group also announced that US home sales have plummeted 25 percent to a 4.16 million seasonally adjusted annual pace in the third quarter, compared to the previous three months.

The number of people owning homes in the US remains at a 10-year low of 66.9 percent in the third quarter this year, according to the US Census Bureau.

HS/MB

2

iono, i see this as good news in many ways, but only in selfish ones.

I’ve been down to florida a couple times and am amazed at how affordable it is to get into the market. for now i’ll just keep renting from a friend who bought a $325,000 condo for $78,000 but i think i’ll likely get something, perhaps with my parents, in the next 5 years.

3

i dunno what to say. On the one hand I suppose house owners would be mad on the other hand people with no homes could ‘have a chance’. In my personal opinion house prices are too damn inflated. Looking historically as well as looking abroad. It’s amazing what sort of villas you can purchase for prices of frickin bangalos that we get here. I grew up in villas in Africa… and kind of take it for granted. Here on the other hand we’re living in an apartment. It’s a completely different world. Alot of people think the rest of the world is ‘undeveloped’ but the fact is they live fairly well, every place has its problems, but one thing north america lacks imo are good houses. Most houses are built with a 20 year span in mind out of wood. Hell… one of my great grandmother’s house built 300 years ago STILL stands today and is inhabited by a part of my family. Rock solid. Lol, I guess that would be considered a ‘historical monument’ in north america.

I still can’t quite afford a house… I just see it as a life long debt. If it’s hard to pay off 20,000$, imagine 500,000$~ over a period of 20-30 years at interest. That’s just crazy.

Heh… I remember back in high school in history class reading ww1/ww2 newspaper ads for houses… lol… a whole house for around 4000-5000$ hilarious.

Every time I walk by the oakville mall “real estate” booth it boggles my mind seeing some of the houses listed going for 1 million, 1.5 million even 2 million… sheesh… I mean regular frickin houses… Good God… those lakeshore/rich downtown oakville mansions must be now 20+ easily… :-/ Insanity.

When we came to canada houses were still possible to be purchased in the 100,000$ range in Burlington. LOL, there are still some places in Hamilton at that range but uuh… there’s a reason why Hamilton is so damn cheap :stuck_out_tongue: Hell even Ghettobico has higher priced houses and is ghettooo :stuck_out_tongue: An absolute shithole starts at 200-300$k range.

The bubble has to burst some time… house prices can’t keep inflating ever so unrealistically. Seriously… houses of matches and sticks costing millions of dollars… that’s just wrong imo.

It’s like a game… where people were fooled into taking insane credits from banks, believing it’s a life long investment, this what happened happens and people can’t even afford it, banks screw everyone over at interest, confiscate houses in the states and then people can’t even take no more credit, they are left homeless. Although the ‘prices’ are gone, the property is no longer in the people’s hands. It’s an insane meticulous level of instant mass theft. Just wow. Think about it.

My brother in law owned a real estate business in the states. To say the least its gone bust of course, he backed out of the business all together but back in the day he was reeling in $$$. Now he runs a completely different business. It could not go on forever.

Personally if there is anything I would get, it would be a condo as well. Something that you can buy quicker and even lease/rent. Assets that make profits = win. Liabilities = fail. Buying a house in my opinion is a liability as money is being taken out of your pocket and you do not own it. Even if you pay off a house, you have to pay repairs, maintenance, etc… it still takes money out of your pocket. Owning a condo on the other hand and renting it would be a true asset, reeling in $$$ for you. Anything that reels in $$$ is a real asset.

4

I get an email from Zillow.com every month with an update of my home value and it has increased over $100,000 in the last year or so. :gotme:

5

Owning a condo gives you the negatives of owning without the positives. The whole point of owning for yourself is that you can change everything how you want it. With a condo you can’t even change the color of it, and you get raped with association fees. It’s like a rental apartment with downside financial risk. If you want cashflow buy a duplex or multiple unit property.

6

not true at all. Only if you believe in the system.

In reality, even if you own a house, you are spending so much to maintain and never truly really own it, besides its a 20-30 year debt. At least with a condo once you own it you can rent it and make profit out of it.

All I’m saying is I am looking at it from a profitability perspective. Talking about houses now and being profitable is a joke. People who own rentable property are making a killing and prices of rent keep going up.

When it comes to ownership I am comparing it to other countries where I’ve lived and where other people I know have lived/owned. Here at least in north america if you want to expand or make renovations you have to go through so much bureaucracy and money to even do anything to your house. That is not taking into account how expensive it is to maintain a house especially the way they are built here with wood rotting and potential termites.

Now if you own property for a few generations I would look at it differently, it’s something worth having obviously. But for someone getting into a house at the moment it makes little sense.

7

^OMFG dude let’s not beat this dead horse. Search NYSPEED for at least 100 reasons why owning is better.

8

I didn’t say owning is bad I said at the moment acquiring a house is bad, acquiring a condominium and making money off of it makes alot more sense and just personally I don’t find these houses worth investing in when I compare to other houses in the rest of the world. I would like to buy a couple of condos here and rent the and use one for myself but buy a home somewhere else warm lol.

Just my opinion, I know people will see it differently and have different opinions.

9

Why do you think you can rent a condo but not a house? I don’t get it. Renting a house gets you more money and you keep more of it instead of spending it on BS fees.

10

With a condo you still need to pay taxes AND association fees on top. And like Joe pointed out…you can’t modify or do much to make it unique.

That said I feel housing is horribly inflated due to the speculation and leverage available even post bubble bursting. I would rent myself if I didn’t have a dirt cheap mortgage already. Housing is the least liquid investment you can make, yet it’s the biggest investment most make.

Perhaps my biggest gripe on owning is you don’t OWN anything but the house. You lease the land thus property taxes. Taxes aren’t likely to decline so you could eventually be priced out of leasing the land your house sits on…even if you have paid it off in full. LAME!

Bottom line:
Banks own most everything in the country. And the go-mint controls the rest. Ahhh the “American dream”. LOL

11

lol thats why i have no motivation to own a house in this country or well in north america for that matter. Only reason I look into condo is to get something quick and cheap and rent and make money in the long run. That’s about it. I would buy a house potentially in Africa or something, somewhere where its summer all year long and you can own a villa and really own what you have but oh well. The problem is the world atmosphere has inflated prices all over the world including africa and middle east. You have no idea how affordable houses and food used to be there, and if you had an educated job you would be set for life although it can be hard to get a job. Now a days the prices are almost like here :-/

12

Owning in Africa is cool until the regional warlord in charge that you’re cool with gets killed and the new one that takes over wants to use your place to fuck women and run heroin in, then you get to either leave or be killed.

Traders, California actually changed their property tax laws to address the situation you described. A bunch of people got killed when property values and assessments took off, so they changed it so you get taxed based on purchase price, and as long as you own the home your assessment value can not increase by more than 2% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.

13

Interesting Joe. Cali isn’t the most stable and I’d have issues trusting them on their word tho. :wink:

Ahmed…why on earth would a Condo seem less inflated or a safer investment to you? It’s the same thing as a house debt wise…but without options and having to pay association fees. I’m failing to see the logic.

14

Homes in WNY are not over valued like other parts of the country. I was talking to my insurance guy last week about replacement cost of homes here and we agreed the nicer, old homes here are way under insured in many cases. The fire places and woodwork in the older homes would cost more than sale price of the homes.
My bank and insurance company both value my home for way less than I paid to have it built and I was my own general and did much work with freinds.

Now if the economy were to really dump and materials and labor dropped accordingly then yes, things would be different but that has not happened… yet.

15

YET is the key word IMO. I agree that given the inflated, bloated cost of materials and labor housing is in line. But there’s that inflated, bloated piece that gets me concerned and annoyed.

This all stems from the BS about your home being the biggest “investment” you make. It’s meant to be a dwelling, not a speculative vehicle. Once people leveraged like mad to keep up with the Jones’s or get on the gravy train and lost touch with what a HOME is meant to be things got real wild, real quick.

JMHO

16

I’ll agree to disagree.

Your warlords comment is retarded. I’ve lived in North Africa/Muslim countries as a white european and a christian. They are highly respectful, kind and hospital. Much less could be said of here where people were racist and are racist when given the chance, much less friendly and more isolated/independent/closed/less social.

You wouldn’t understand any of what I said unless you lived closely with some of these people. Your comment about ‘warlords’ makes you sound stupid as that’s the kind of garbage I would expect out of bbc, cbc, nbc, cnn, fox, abc and your government not someone educated or experienced of living in these countries.

It’s kind of like the questions I used to get when I came here “Did you guys have roads, did you guys have houses or was it trees?” Serious questions not sarcasm LOL. In fact their roads and houses are built to last, unless of course they get bombed by Americans oh ha ha ha. Sarcasm.

Iraq was also a very beautiful, rich and educated country until it got fucked over by America. My old man worked with three international engineering companies that were building a dam that was to be the biggest dam in the world in Iraq, inside a mountain of sorts, a project envisioned by some Japanese engineers. Alas the Iraq-Iran conflict happened around that time. It was a very very beautiful country until the American led gulf wars that totally obliterated the place twice over.

17

North Africa is one thing. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, etc. is another. You did not specify.

18

Wow, I am shocked. Not that it mattered at all but I thought you were Muslim. lol

19

^I became Muslim

---------- Post added at 01:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 PM ----------

Yeah uh… I wana live in the ‘democratic’ republic of the congo. Uh no. Some dude my family knew slept with a hooker there and got aids and died LOL. That’s one messed up country man. Alot of the middle africa countries are a colonial after thought… I feel sorry for those people what they’ve had to endure and go through, not a place to live, that’s not what I meant.

20

Reuters

another good article today on reuters:

Starts on new homes in the United States slumped to the lowest in 1-1/2 years in October, mainly due to sharply reduced building of multi-unit homes, according to a government report on Wednesday that underlined the strains facing the sector

The Commerce Department said overall construction starts plummeted 11.7 percent to a 519,000 annual rate from a downwardly revised 588,000 in September.

It was the weakest starts rate since 477,000 in April 2009 when the economy was still coping with the severe impact of the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

Economists surveyed by Reuters had anticipated a starts rate in October of 600,000 – far higher than the actual outcome.