Home Prices Dipping Down Still Further

The aftermath of foreclosure crisis is haunting US Real Estate market, if the latest press reports are any indication. Market watchers report that Single-family home prices are heading south, particularly in the Western parts – a regretful 7.7% during the first quarter. This is the largest decline year-to-year ever since the National Association of Realtors started reporting property prices in 1982. Compared with the last three months of 2007, the median sale prices of housing properties fell to $196,300 – a 4.8% nose-dive.

Realty circles attribute this record decline to troubles faced in the financial markets, liquidity problems in particular. High priced markets attract jumbo loans and the last quarter has turned out only fewer originations in this segment. Realty experts hasten to add that California accounted for 40% of all sales with jumbo mortgages going over $417,000, and the liquidity crunch has it from the summer of 2007 to taper down in home sales to only 10%.

Another reason for this high priced markets sales getting discouraged could be, the Government sponsored agencies – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – raising the cap of jumbo loans from $417,000 to include prices up to $729,750 since February. Other mortgage lenders charge higher rates of interest for these conforming jumbos at 1% to 1.5% more than ordinary conforming loans, leading to fall of sales figures in higher price ranges.

The subprime implosion forced a lot of lower priced housing properties back on the markets, hitting hard the higher priced markets to suffer, which again has the effect of dragging down NAR’s statistics as above. California and similar other Sun Belt cities have the unfavorable combination of high prices as well as heavy proportions of subprime mortgages for losing big on the sales indexes.
Plummeting price lines are recoded thus – California, Sacramento 29.2% to $258,500 in comparison with last year’s prices; Riverside 27.7% to $287,100; Las Vegas 20.2% to $247,600 and Phoenix, Arizona 15.4% to $222,200.

Loss of employment due to factory closing is plaguing the Midwestern cities. So the median prices fell sharply as – Lansing, Michigan 26.9%. Out of 150 real estate markets studied, Saginaw, Michigan turns out the lowest median price – an amazingly low $65,400 for a housing property. Analysts are of the opinion that the factors behind such a steep fall are – weak industrial economics caused by the Big Three automakers – Ford, GM and Chrysler and deflating of the real estate bubble.

Interestingly in some quarters there is solace by showing gains in nearly one third of the markets, the best performance coming from New York reporting a rise in prices by 11.8% to $109,700; followed by Peoria, Illinois up by 10.4% to $119,400; and Spartanburg, S.C. by 10.2% to $130,300.
Region-wise results are – Northeast shows single-family home prices rising slightly by 3.2% to $280,000, while all others dipped. South dropping 7.5% to $164,200; Midwest reporting a fall of 7.9% to $142,700 and West plunging deep by 12.3% to $296,300.

Overall a gloomy future looms large on the markets by big rises in foreclosure filings hitting home prices severely in the last 12 months, where delinquencies more than doubled. During the first 3 months of the year some 155,000 home owners forfeited their homes to bank repossessions. The projection for 2009 is bleak since adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) are expected to reset this year for higher rates, making defaults soaring further.
Inventory of unsold foreclosures has risen to an average of 10 months, adding up to the record number of 2.9 million vacant homes for want of takers. Builders looking to sell homes are forced to aggressive slashing of prices and adding up incentives to buyers, while housing starts have been held up at a 17 year low.

Finally the home sales figures at nearly 492,000 a month are hardly a 2/3rds of the peak in summer 2005. The general trend is condo prices are fetching better than single-family homes, the median price falling slightly by 3% since early 2007. The market projections for February 2009 indicate prices falling still worse.