Published on: Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Written by: Property Wire
Overall, US housing prices have slumped without government stimulus, while remaining out of a dreaded double dip, but don’t expect recovery by early 2011. Performance is uneven across individual markets, with the Midwest and South seeing the worst quarterly declines and Florida sinking to new depths. See the following article from Property Wire for more on this.
Hopes of a recovery in the US real estate market in early 2011 have faded as the latest property price data shows continued sharp declines.
The data shows that some parts of the country are seeing steep declines. Overall prices fell almost 4% in October on a quarterly basis, according to figures from CoreLogic. And statistics from Clear Capital shows a 5.8% fall in November over the previous three months. Although prices are 5.5% above the lows seen in 2009.
CoreLogic’s chief economist Mark Fleming said without the artificial support of the government, the housing market continues to show signs of weakness. ‘When you combine these factors with high shadow and visible inventories, the prospect for a housing recovery in early 2011 is fading,’ Fleming said.
The CoreLogic report shows that prices fell 15% in Idaho, the largest decrease in the country for October. They also fell 9.3% in Alabama, 8.5% in Oregon, 8.25% in Arizona and 8% in Florida.
But prices increased 5.67%, in Wyoming, 5.35% in North Dakota and nearly 3% in New York.
But the downward pressure is likely to continue, according to Alex Villacorta, senior statistician at Clear Capital. ‘It’s encouraging that the immediate and dramatic decline in prices that we observed since mid-August appears to be softening. But any optimism should be tempered by the fact that November’s numbers show continued significant downward pressure for home prices,’ he said.
‘Nationally, prices are 6% above double dip territory, but are down 8% since the momentum from the tax credit ended,’ he added.
According to the Clear Capital report prices dropped most in the Midwest, falling 9.9% from three months ago, followed by a 4.8% drop in the South. With prices just above record lows in the South, Clear Capital reported the region is narrowing in on a double dip.
Some 13 of the top 50 metro markets have double dipped, more than double the six reported in October. Those markets are the Florida metros of Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando and Tampa, Charlotte in North Carolina, Las Vegas, Nashville, Philadelphia, Portland in Oregon, Seattle; Tucson, and the Virginia metros of Richmond and Virginia Beach . Only Honolulu, Hawaii, and Washington, D.C., maintained quarterly and yearly price gains.
‘From a local perspective, we continue to see individual markets distance themselves from national price levels in both positive and negative directions. For example, Washington, D.C., maintains its positive price growth with prices now 15% above last year’s lows, while the four biggest Florida markets are now seeing new price lows since the housing downturn began,’ added Villacorta.
This article has been republished from Property Wire. You can also view this article at Property Wire, an international real estate news site.
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