Home prices falling in most major U.S. cities

[bemildred]

Home prices are falling in most major U.S. cities, and the average prices in four of them are at their lowest point in 11 years.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city index released Tuesday shows price declines in 19 cities from December to January. Eleven of them are at their lowest level since the housing bust, in 2006 and 2007. The index fell for the sixth straight month.

Home values in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Detroit and Cleveland are now below January 2000 levels.

The only market where prices rose was Washington, where homes prices gained 0.1 percent month over month.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fiw-home-prices-20110329,0,2707612.story

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[ananda]

2. They're not falling here.

They've gone up in fact.

[xiamiam]

3. where?

[xiamiam]

4. expect prices to go lower..the loan mod fiasco has assured that

the banks pulled the trigger on all of those load mods in limbo..in dec and jan..those homes..millions of them are headed to the court house steps

[bemildred]

5. Are you in "most major cities"? nt

[earthside]

6. I knew it!

We've been looking on and off in the west Denver suburbs ... prices were stuck most of last year at prices I knew were just too high for the state of the Colorado economy.

We started looking again a couple of weeks ago and lo and behold ... prices are down $25,000 to $50,000 on homes that were in the $300,000 range.

And, there are a lot of homes on the market (of course, it is spring when folks tend to put their houses up), but it sure seems like more than the usual number of for sale signs are popping up.

Frankly, with the so-called 'recovery' stalled out, with gasoline prices and food prices going up, the price of house still seems too high. I think a reasonable level may be when a $300,000 2009 home goes for about a hundred thousand dollars less.

[Wilms]

7. When the housing prices go up it's bad. When they go down it's bad.

:shrug:

[abelenkpe]

8. Going down Bad for banks

Wall street investors and people who were counting on selling their home n using that money for retirement. Good for working class families looking to buy who have been priced out for past ten years or so. Ultimately the need to be in line with local incomes so in some places like CA they still have a ways to go.

[fasttense]

9. Really? Those high priced homes seemed to be flying off the shelf

during the housing bubble. Most anyone could qualify for a loan. People who were selling did just fine. People who were buying did alright until the bubble burst and the banks exposed their ponzi schemes. I'm not advocating another ponzi housing bubble scheme but real estate should go up simply due to supply and demand and inflation. Downward prices are a sign of a troubled economy.

I'm not so sure housing prices going down is good for working people either. My grandparents and my parents eventually sold their homes and used the money for their retirement, both were blue collar workers. It was how everyone planned.

[golfguru]

10. Here in Southern WA state

Expensive homes $350,000 & up are selling the best.
Worst selling are between $175,000-$250,000.
Cheaper homes are selling OK.

[mackerel]

11. Same here in the San Francisco Bay Area. The moderatley

price homes seem to be moving the slowest. Where I live the market is saturated with too many homes on the market.

[Oilstocks]

12. Home Prices Will Rise

Doesn't matter about this at all, I'm getting ready to wait for a the real estate boom in the next 2-3 years. It is only a matter of time before something extrodinary happens in the real estate market.

[golfguru]

13. No rise possible until

the real unemployment (currently around 20%) comes down to under 10%.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/146900/Gallup-Finds-Unemployment-Rate-March.aspx