Median Home Prices Drop In Many Cities

Prices Fall In 1st Quarter In Two-Thirds Of U.S. Cities Surveyed; 46 States Report Declining Sales

(AP)  Median home prices fell in two-thirds of the cities surveyed during the first three months of this year while 46 states reported declining sales, a real estate trade group reported Tuesday.

The National Association of Realtors said that median prices for existing single-family homes dropped in 100 of 149 metropolitan areas in the January-March period, while 48 metropolitan areas saw prices increase and one reported no change.

The price declines in 67 percent of the areas surveyed was the largest percentage of areas reporting declining prices in the history of the Realtors' survey, which goes back to 1979. Prices had fallen in 34 percent of the cities surveyed in the October-December survey.

Nationally, the median home price - the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less - fell to $196,300 in the first quarter, down by 7.7 percent from the same period a year ago, when the median sales price was $212,600.

Sales of existing homes were down in 46 states. The largest percentage plunge was a 38.6 percent drop in Maryland during the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2007. Only Alaska, Illinois and New Jersey reported sales increases during the survey period. Data for New Hampshire was not available.

Nationally, sales fell by 22.2 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period a year ago.

The steep decline in prices and sales were the latest indication of the problems facing the housing market, which is in a prolonged slump that has dragged down sales and home prices.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, said that part of the problem in the first three months of the year was that it was hard to get so-called jumbo loans because of the credit squeeze triggered by rising mortgage defaults, particularly for subprime loans, mortgages made to borrowers with weak credit histories. Jumbo loans are critical to finance homes in high-cost areas of the country.

"These are highly unusual results because there were very few jumbo loan originations in the latest quarter, so sales are much slower in high-cost areas, and at the same time foreclosures related to subprime mortgages rose," he said.

Yun said that subprime mortgages are accounting for more than half of all mortgage foreclosures and that sharp price declines are principally occurring in neighborhoods where subprime loans had been prevalent.

[forthepeopl1]

please this is a simple thing to fix, why are you bending over for all of the wallstreet scum.
you have the right to do what this paulson/ben did for wallstreet,saying they had to to save america. so you can say the same thing, but this time you would be saveing america, and not wallstreet.
you must come out and stop the forcloseing of all these millions of homes, now,
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS MANDATE THAT ALL MORTGAGES THAT HAVE BEEN TAKEN OUT FROM 2000 TO 2007 BY ALL AMERICANS TO BE RE-FI A.S.A.P. NO EXCEPTIONS,


NO MATTER WHAT THE CREDIT IS, THEY WILL RE-FI EVERYONE AT JUST OVER PRIME, AND AT A RATE OF 40% OF WHAT IS OWED ON THE PROPERTY( PERSONAL HOMES ONLY)!!
WHY, BECAUSE MOST HOST ARE SELLING AT FORCLOSER FOR 20 TO 30 CENTS ON THE DOLLAR, SO AS TO WHAT PAULSON SAID TO BEARSTEARN 2 DOLLARS IS BETTER THAN NO DOLLARS SO TAKE THE DEAL..NOW REMEMBER ALL OF YOU, IF THIS COMPANY IN 6 MONTHS LOST 98% OF THEIR VALUE FROM 700 BILLION TO WHAT IS IT NOW. AND FOR SOMEONE TO COME IN AND BUY IT FOR NOTHING, WHAT IS THE REAL VALUE OF ALL THESE HOMES???NOBODY KNOWS, SO WHY NOT JUST START OVER??? AND STOP THE BLEEDING FOR ALL AMERICANS.

[e-mail]
DAVID A BELANGER
FOR COMMON SENSE THIS IS SO EASY TO FIX DONT MAKE IT HARDER THAN IT IS PEOPLE.

AND LOOK AT THIS MORNINGS NEWS, THE GREAT POTATOHEAD PAULSON,AND BEN ARE IN TALKS WITH ANOTHER WALLSTREET FIRM GOING DOWN. MERRILL LYNCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!

WHAT MORE BAILOUTS FOR WALLSTREET COMING

[darnedsocks]

THE PRICE OF HOUSE -- EVEN WHILE FALLING -- IS STILL OUTRAGEOUS! BEFORE THE 1980s...BEFORE THEY LET ILLEGALS INTO THE COUNTRY IN SWARMS, YOUNG COUPLES COULD ACTUALLY BUY A STARTER HOME AND START A FAMILY. CAN THEY DO THAT NOW IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA OR BOSTON, OR NEW YORK OR CHICAGO OR DENVER? NO! THE PRICE OF HOUSING IS SIMPLY WAAAAAAAAAAAAY INFLATED AND UNREALISTIC. THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR AMERICANS HAS GREATLY DIMINISHED, BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO LIVE IN OVERPRICED APARTMENTS OR WITH THEIR PARENTS OR WAIT UNTIL THEIR PARENTS KICK THE BUCKET SO THEY CAN GET A DOWN PAYMENT ON SOMETHING.

[sjc_1]

You need the jumbo loans because of greed. If people would sell their houses at a reasonable price, there would be affordable housing and no need for these kinds of loans. Perhaps we should have a wind fall profits tax for greedy home sellers.

[brianbwb-2009]

let the prices drop all the way to the point where a McJob worker can afford to own a home, because McJobs are all that is left in this country.

[jerr11]

It''''s funny how everyone forgot that home prices went up 150 to 200 percent in the last decade.

Posted by shanev137 at 04:44 PM : May 13, 2008



Yeah, great for those who bought their houses before it went up, but not so great if you bought at 200 percent.

[sistatee-2009]

Reporters attempted to contact V.P. Cheney at his home in Dubai for comments concerning the housing crisis, but he was vacationing in the United States and unavailable.

[forthepeopl1]

and you would have to prove that the un put a billion a month in our economy...show me and all americans..

and i guess you love bush to,and cheney, and rice, all traitor the this country..

all murders of our troops. and before you say something big boy i am a veteran,u.s.army, inf.

so what have you done for our country.

[forthepeopl1]

middleman8, so please tell us americans why we have to give our tax dollars to anyone except us americans?

and please tell us americans why we do anything with a country that is hideing oh bin??? we give them ( afgan) 10 billion in aid that they use for military build up instead of helping their poor. but they will not let us go into the mountains to get bin..why

[excoachken]

Excuse mw , I meant to say water instead of awter. That''s what you get for trying to write after too much Traminer Rieseling.

[excoachken]

This is just a realistic adjustment to the value of living in certain areas. For all those who have migrated to the southwest in search of the sun, they can expect their home value to continue to plummet unless we find a solution to the awter supply crisis that is growing from overdevelopment.