Nat. Mean Housing Price FELL in April to 198 k down from 218k

[junker]

the perfect financial storm is happening now. Expectations are for a 3per cent or greater fall in housing prices in next report.

a good article can be found at link on the
the largest housing recession in modern history.

The Perfect Real Estate Storm
by Blanche Evans


Rising consumer debt, rising interest rates, inflation, low job and wage growth and many other factors are swirling together to form a housing slowdown. But there a few other factors that are adding to the winds that could create the perfect storm - the largest housing recession in modern history.

Take a look at the storm conditions

http://realtytimes.com/rtapages/20040624_perfectstorm.htm

[NMDemDist2]

1. and the housing market is one of the only things that have been

holding up the economy at all. I feel sorry for Kerry, he is inheriting a HUGE mess

[happyslug]

2. Her June 25th Column is below:

http://realtytimes.com/rtapages/20040625_restorm.htm

This is the continuance of her June 24th Column cited above.

[Frodo]

3. Once again I see no evidence for your title.

Please provide a link for falling home prices.

The data reported last week showed 10% year-over-year gains in both mean and median prices with each of the last three months showing improvement from the month before.

The article you linked shows nothing indicating falling home prices. I suspect you are comparing either one month's mean to another's median, or resale averages to new home averages.

I expect we will see at least another six months of rising prices (and historically high, though falling, sales numbers) before things start to slow down. I don't expect a nationwide price decline, merely a reduction in average increases to 1-2%/yr (which will certainly SEEM like falling prices to many). And, of course, some "hot" markets will certainly see declines. A few could be painful.


What I HAVE seen is a dramatic decline in the rate of increase of NEW home prices. Most months this year have shown solid double-digit year-iver-year increases in new home prices (sometimes greater than 15%) while May just showed a 1-2% increase over May 2003 (but that's not uncommon in new home construction - even during the boom of the last few years there were some months that showed declines yoy. Part of that was last May's huge jump, but undoubtedly a BIG part of it is builders clearly seeing the "top" of this market. But "top" is a relative thing... new home sales need to fall a bit better than 30% before they fall to the best level of the 90's.

[specimenfred1984]

4. I found this in about 10 minutes of Googling

http://www.realtor.org/PublicAffairsWeb.nsf/Pages/AprEHS02?OpenDocument

<<The national median existing-home price was $153,300 in April, up 7.1 percent from April 2001 when the median price was $143,100.>>

and...

<<The national median existing-home price was $174,100 in March, up 7.4 percent from March 2003 when the median price was $162,100.>>

http://www.realtor.org/publicaffairsweb.nsf/Pages/MarchEHS04?OpenDocument

That one indicator shows about a 10% drop in the "national median existing home price" from March to April. If anyone wants to tweek the numbers feel free, it doesn't change the other real estate factors of income vs. price, huge personal debt and as always location-location.

[Frodo]

5. Clever. I'm not sure whether you missed something... or expected me to?

"That one idicator" WOULD show a 12% decline from March to April if you were linking two reports from 2004. Since this was March of 2004 and April of 2002, there's been no decline at all. It shows about a 14% increase in two years. And since this is the median price rather than the mean, that's pretty impressive.
Perhaps you should google more carefully?


I'm still interested in a link for Junker's original claim.

[specimenfred1984]

6. You are correct, my mistake

http://www.realtor.org/PublicAffairsWeb.nsf/Pages/AprilEHS04?OpenDocument

<< The national median existing-home price was $176,000 in April, up 7.3 percent from April 2003 >>

<<The national median existing-home price was $174,100 in March, up 7.4 percent from March 2003 when the median price was $162,100.>>

http://www.realtor.org/publicaffairsweb.nsf/Pages/MarchEHS04?OpenDocum...

So the stat from that site shows a $1,900 gain, not a 10% decrease. I should google more carefully!