Real Estate

[2Real4me!]

Fed Offers $100 Billion More to Banks
Friday March 28, 1:44 pm ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer



Fed Offers $100 Billion More to Commercial Banks to Fight Credit Crisis

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve announced Friday it will auction another $100 billion in April to cash-strapped banks as it continues to combat the effects of a credit crisis.
The central bank said it would make $50 billion available at each of two auctions, on April 7 and April 21.
Through the end of March, the Fed has provided $260 billion in short-term loans to commercial banks through the innovative auction process. It also has employed Depression-era provisions to provide money to investment banks.
All the moves have been designed to cope with a serious financial crisis that has roiled U.S. and global markets and caused the near-collapse of Bear Stearns Cos., the nation's fifth largest investment bank.
The Fed has been holding auctions every two seeks since December to provide short-term loans to commercial banks. It started with auctions of $20 billion, then pushed the level to $30 billion, and in early March raised the auction amount to $50 billion as the credit shortage grew more severe.
In announcing the move to $50 billion last month, the Fed said it would continue the auctions for at least the next six months, unless credit conditions show they are no longer needed.
The auctions are just one of a series of unorthodox steps the Fed has taken to battle the current crisis. The biggest of those moves was an announcement that it was allowing investment banks to borrow directly from the Fed. Previously, only commercial banks, which face tighter regulations, had that privilege.
The Fed also said it would make available $30 billion in financing to support the sale of troubled Bear Stearns to JP Morgan Chase & Co., hoping to prevent a bankruptcy that could have rocked Wall Street.
The Fed's auctions have drawn criticism from some that the central bank, and ultimately U.S. taxpayers, could be financing a bailout for big Wall Street firms that had engaged in risky lending practices.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will fact questions about the Fed's recent moves when he testifies on Wednesday before the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

[2Real4me!]

Hud Chief Resigns Amid Criminal Probe
Monday March 31, 4:50 pm ET
By Pete Yost, Associated Press Writer



HUD Secretary Quits Amid Housing Crisis and a Criminal Probe of His Activities

WASHINGTON (AP) -- HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, his tenure tarnished by allegations of political favoritism and a criminal investigation, announced his resignation Monday amid the wreckage of the national housing crisis.
He leaves behind a trail of unanswered questions about whether he tilted the Department of Housing and Urban Development toward Republican contractors and cronies.
The move comes at a shaky time for the economy, with soaring mortgage foreclosures imperiling the nation's credit markets.
In announcing that his last day at HUD will be April 18, Jackson said only, "There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters."
Some Congressional Democrats had pushed for him to leave.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said that while Jackson's resignation is "appropriate, it does nothing to address the Bush administration's wait-and-don't-see posture to our nation's housing crisis."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said HUD will be called on to work with Congress on assisting refinancing for borrowers faced with imminent foreclosure.
The ethical allegations against Jackson "meant that the Bush administration's ineffective housing policies were being burdened by an even more ineffective HUD Secretary," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said after Jackson's announcement.
President Bush called Jackson "a strong leader and a good man." Ties between the two men go back to the 1980s when they lived in the same Dallas neighborhood. It was Jackson's personal ties to Bush that brought him to Washington, where he displayed a forceful personal style at HUD for seven years, first as the agency's No. 2 official and since 2004 in the top slot.
Despite a strong commitment to housing for those in need, Jackson was capable of ill-advised public comments.
Last year, after the subprime mortgage crisis erupted, many policymakers underlined the disproportionate impact of the high-risk, high-cost mortgages on minorities and the elderly, who often are targets of predatory lending practices that lure people into loans they are incapable of repaying.
Asked about the problems with subprime mortgages last June, Jackson insisted that many such borrowers were not unsophisticated, low-income people but what he called "Yuppies, Buppies and Guppies" -- well-educated, young, black and gay upwardly mobile achievers -- with expensive cars who bought $400,000 homes with little or no money down.
In announcing his departure, Jackson said that in his time at HUD, "We have helped families keep their homes. We have transformed public housing. We have reduced chronic homelessness. And we have preserved affordable housing and increased minority homeownership."
Bush has been cool to the idea of a big federal housing rescue. "The temptation of Washington is to say that anything short of a massive government intervention in the housing market amounts to inaction," the president said recently. "I strongly disagree with that sentiment."
On Monday on his way out of the country for a trip built around a NATO summit, Bush said he wants Congress to modernize HUD's Federal Housing Administration, allowing more struggling homeowners to refinance their mortgages.
In October, the National Journal first reported on the criminal investigation of Jackson. The FBI has been examining the ties between Jackson and a friend who was paid $392,000 by Jackson's department as a construction manager in New Orleans. Jackson's friend got the job after Jackson asked a staff member to pass along his name to the Housing Authority of New Orleans.
In another instance of alleged favoritism that came to light in February, the Philadelphia housing authority alleges that Jackson retaliated against the agency because it refused to award a vacant lot worth $2 million to soul-music producer-turned-community developer Kenny Gamble for redevelopment of a public housing complex.
Jackson's problems began in 2006, when he told a group of commercial real estate executives that he had revoked a contract because the applicant who thanked him said he did not like President Bush. Jackson later told investigators "I lied" when he made the remark about taking back the contract.
The probe of Jackson's comment by the HUD inspector general ended with no action taken against him, but the investigators brought to light friction between the HUD secretary and some contractors who have long done business with the agency, a number of them donors to Democrats. On Monday, the IG's office said it had seen Jackson's latest remarks and "there is nothing more that we can add."
In the IG probe, some of Jackson's own aides contradicted his account of one incident in which investigators found the HUD secretary had blocked a contract for several months to one heavily Democratic donor. Jackson blamed his aides for the delay in the award.
Jackson was the first black leader of the housing authority in Dallas, where his integration efforts caused clashes with some local homeowners in predominantly white neighborhoods.
Associated Press writers Marcy Gordon, Ben Feller, Hope Yen and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report

[2Real4me!]

Pending Home Sales Hit Low in February
Tuesday April 8, 5:22 pm ET
By Alan Zibel, AP Business Writer



New Low for Pending Home Sales in February Is Latest Sign of a Still-Tumbling Housing Market

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Homeowners and investors hunting for any indication that the housing market has bottomed out didn't get it Tuesday, as the latest home sales data from a real estate trade group moved that sign further down the road to recovery.
The National Association of Realtors said pending U.S. home sales fell in February to the lowest reading since the index began in 2001. The trade group's seasonally adjusted index of pending sales for existing homes fell to 84.6 from January's upwardly revised reading of 86.2. A year earlier, the index stood at 107.6.
Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR had predicted the index would inch up to a reading of 86.3.
A reading of 100 is equal to the average level of sales when the index started. The previous low was August's reading of 85.8, recorded at the height of the credit crunch.
With house prices falling and credit continuing to tighten, many economists say the housing market is likely to worsen in the coming months, though some remain hopeful about a recovery in the second half of the year.
"The question was whether things were starting to stabilize," said Global Insight economist Patrick Newport. "Apparently they're not."
Newport predicts home sales will fall by another 5 to 10 percent before picking up at the end of the year, while the Realtors group forecasts sales will remain flat in the first half of the year before rebounding strongly in the second half.
The Realtors report gives an early indication of how existing home sales are likely to fare for March, because of the typical lag of a month or two between when a buyer signs a home sales contract and the closing of the deal.
Moody's Economy.com forecasts sales of existing homes will fall 1.6 percent in March to an annual rate of 4.95 million units, down from 5.03 million units in February. That month's 2.9 percent increase in home sales was the first increase since last July.
"Despite recent steps to provide more liquidity to the mortgage market and ease financing constraints for potential buyers, access to credit remains restricted, especially for marginal buyers," Aaron Smith, senior economist at Economy.com, wrote. If job losses prove worse than expected as the economy slows, "the floor forming under home sales could begin to cave in."
Lawrence Yun, the Realtors' chief economist, said in a statement that the pending home sales dip "implies we're not out of the woods yet, though an era of successive deep sales declines appears to be over."
The Realtors group maintained its prediction that the housing market would pick up in the second half of the year, forecasting improved availability of loans for more expensive houses. It forecasts the median price of a U.S. home -- the point at which half homes sell for more money and half for less -- will fall 1.4 percent to $215,800.
Some analysts say lower home prices are luring bottom-fishers to look for cheap deals, but that activity isn't a guaranteed industry booster.
"We'll have to see if these pending transactions can actually close," Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Jupiter, Fla.-based Weiss Research said in an e-mail. "My concern is that stingier lending standards are leading to more deals falling apart."

[IV]

This thread is far to negative.

[IV]

I thought I'd post more negative information. Below is a nice little 100 year chart that shows historical real estate prices. If you notice, there were two significant time periods in which prices remained relatively flat. This means that people were content to just own their house. Now we are living in a time where people are accustomed to instant gratification.

Or more poignantly, the way I see it is that people are more apt to take anyone they can for a ride just to make a buck.





However, if you notice the top of the chart line on the far right. Yeah....it doesn't take into account the downward spiral the real estate market is in right now. I think it's uncontrollable. Back in Oct or Nov of last year was the last time anyone will see a profit in real estate for quite a while. The economy is going nowhere fast.

Let this be your uplifting news for the day......Quite frankly, and I must be a tad sadistic here, but I am really, really glad that the prices are finally adjusting. At this moment I am laughing at all the real estate gurus that told me to hurry up and buy at 680,000 because I would never again see lower prices. WHAT??!!

[2Real4me!]

The New York Times

April 13, 2008

Even Renters Aren’t Safe
By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

ON a cold evening in March, Desiree Dookhoo was at home in Ozone Park, Queens, studying for a nursing exam, when she heard someone trying to open her front door. She demanded to know who was there and threatened to call the police.

“It’s Richard from the bank,” a voice answered. “Your landlord has lost the house.”

Many renters may believe that they have avoided the chaos of the subprime loan crisis and the mortgage meltdown simply by renting and not buying, but they may not be as insulated as they think. Buildings with tenants are going into foreclosure as well.

“This is a growing problem nationwide,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, a research company. “Landlords of all stripes could potentially get caught up in this very severe downturn.”

“I suspect that it’s going to be more of a problem for lower- to middle-income markets,” Mr. Zandi added.

Ms. Dookhoo said her landlord had told her that “he wasn’t ready to buy a house at that point in his life. He just got sidetracked by the bank and told all these wonderful stories,” about how he could afford a mortgage. Eventually, his debts caught up to him and the house slipped into foreclosure. “It didn’t work out for him, unfortunately,” she said.

It has not worked out terribly well for Ms. Dookhoo, either. Her lease expired last year, so when the property manager appointed by the bank asked her to move out, she started looking. Now, she and her two children have to find a new place to live in New York’s expensive and saturated housing market.

The property manager who came knocking on Ms. Dookhoo’s door has not been forthcoming about which bank he represents. But since he is giving her some time to look for a new apartment, she decided not to push the issue. He has also said that he would give her a little money for her moving expenses — an offer known in the industry as “cash for keys.”

“I’ve got to leave, it’s their house now,” she said.

In New York, a city of renters despite the recent condominium boom, tenants are particularly at risk. According to census figures for 2006, the most recent year for which data was available, an estimated 65.6 percent of New York City housing was renter occupied, as opposed to 32.7 percent nationwide.

“The effects of the subprime crisis and the housing-price crisis are just different in New York than in many parts of the country,” said Vicki Been, the director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University, citing factors like strong home prices and low homeownership rates. “The crisis is unfolding more slowly and, I think, it is affecting many more renter households than it is elsewhere in the country.”

In 1993, during the last big wave of foreclosures in New York City, nearly 6,200 buildings (residential, commercial and mixed-use) began the foreclosure process. In 2007, the Furman Center estimated that at least 38,000 people facing a foreclosure in New York City were renters.

The center, analyzing data in New York City from housing court and the county registrar, estimates that foreclosure proceedings were begun on nearly 15,000 residential or mixed-use buildings last year alone — a majority of them small buildings with just a few units, and almost all of them in the boroughs outside of Manhattan. (The center counts a total of about 900,000 buildings with residential space in the 5 boroughs and some 3.2 million units of housing.)

“The national discussion about foreclosures has largely focused on owners,” Ms. Been said. “There’s a whole group here that is not being talked about:” renters.

Foreclosures can have an impact on tenants in lots of ways, but there are two sets of problems that most will face. The first and most daunting is eviction. The second is a loss of services, which can mean anything from having to fix your own clogged pipes to losing heat in the winter.

Luis Matute moved into a two-bedroom railroad apartment at the top of a walk-up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, 13 years ago. Five years later, Nelva Muy joined him when they were married. Now, the couple, who are from Ecuador, and their 6-year-old son, Jinson, live in the same apartment, which has become plagued with cracks and leaks.

Two years ago, the person who collected the rent every month stopped showing up. Mr. Matute and Ms. Muy have not paid rent since, though they have been saving their rent money of $575 a month.

Michael Grinthal, a lawyer at South Brooklyn Legal Services’ housing unit, said that putting rent money in a bank account is a good way for tenants to protect themselves from lawsuits or eviction if a court decides that the landlord or new owner is entitled to unpaid back rent.

In a sense, however, Mr. Matute and Ms. Muy are getting what they pay for.

Since their landlord disappeared, they have grappled with everything from a crumbling roof to lapsed utility bills. They have pitched in with their neighbors to pay some of the bills and make repairs to try to keep their apartments livable.

“I did the best I could,” Mr. Matute said.

“We do everything in the building,” Ms. Muy added. (They both spoke in Spanish, through an interpreter.)

Despite their efforts, worsening conditions landed their home on the city’s list of the 200 worst residential buildings in the five boroughs, which was released last November.

Since then, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development has made $70,000 worth of repairs — and still when it rains they put a bowl in their living room to collect the leaking raindrops.

With their lease expired and the future of the building uncertain, the family doesn’t know if a move is in the offing.

They have the cushion of saved rent, but finding housing that is affordable long-term will be a challenge. Mr. Matute earns $11 per hour working in a lumber warehouse, and Ms. Muy recently lost her job in a clothing factory. They know their rent could easily double if they moved to another apartment in their Bushwick neighborhood.

“We want to stay here,” Ms. Muy said. “This is our home. I would like to know, if I have to move out.”

Other renters are forced out of their apartments because of worsening conditions.

According to Neill Coleman, a spokesman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, residents who find themselves without essential services like heat, water or gas can ask the city for help by calling 311.

“H.P.D. will make emergency repairs if necessary (that could include delivery of oil for the boiler or picking up the electricity account),” he wrote in an e-mail message.

This winter, the heat went out in Yolanda Feliciano’s apartment in the Bronx. More than two months later, it was still not working. Her landlord defaulted on her mortgage and left this problem to her tenants.

Ms. Feliciano contacted the city several weeks ago. Mr. Coleman said that a case had been brought against the landlord in housing court and that the department officials had tried to turn the heat on twice but they could not get into the building. He invited Ms. Feliciano to schedule a time for them to come by again.

For the time being, Ms. Feliciano is staying with friends and has sent her two children to live with their father. She said a potential buyer was interested in the building, and has told her that she can stay on as a tenant.

William Carbine, an assistant commissioner for neighborhood preservation at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, said that there had been a program in place since 2005, called PACE, to help homeowners with mortgage troubles. But the program was intended to help victims of predatory lending, and hasn’t been able to keep up with problems caused by the subprime crisis.

“Subprime really overwhelmed what was available,” he said.

Mr. Carbine cited a range of problems brought on the city by the housing crisis, ranging from neighborhood destabilization to speculative construction that has left buildings standing empty. To address them, he said, the city is creating the Center For New York City Neighborhoods, which provides resources like counseling and legal services citywide.

The city does not have a tenant program, the hope being that if you help the owner, the tenant will also be taken care of. Renters, however, can call for advice.

By the time the city gets involved, it might be too late the help the landlord. And some owners simply walk away from buildings that they can no longer afford.

Carmelo Casiano and his mother, Gregoria, have been living in the same building on Dekalb Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn, since Mr. Casiano got a divorce more than 20 years ago.

Their landlord disappeared some five years ago, and eventually the building went into foreclosure. Since then, it has fallen into disrepair, losing everything from heat to pieces of the ceiling.

Late last year, Sister Kathleen Maire of the Bushwick Housing Independence Project, began helping the Casianos and their neighbors sort out the legal and physical mess of their building.

She is helping them apply for “7A” status, under which a court-appointed caretaker collects rent and administers an abandoned building. The rent goes toward utilities and repairs. If their building is sold instead, they may well have to move.

Sister Maire says she thinks that the city housing department makes an effort to respond to complaints and keep people’s apartments safe, but “they just don’t have the staff.”

When the landlord leaves, she added, “What it does, is put a terrible burden on the tenants.”

[2Real4me!]

New home sales plunge to lowest level in 16 1/2 years
Thursday April 24, 11:13 am ET
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer



New home sales plunge to lowest level in 16 1/2 years, prices drop by largest amount in 38 years

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of new homes plunged in March to the lowest level in 16 1/2 years as housing slumped further at the start of the spring sales season.
The median price of a new home in March, compared with a year ago, fell by the largest amount in nearly four decades.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that sales of new homes dropped by 8.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units, the slowest sales pace since October 1991.
The median price of a home sold in March dropped by 13.3 percent compared with March 2007, the biggest year-over-year price decline since a 14.6 percent plunge in July 1970.
The dismal news on new home sales followed earlier reports showing sales of existing homes fell by 2 percent in March. Housing, which boomed for five years, has been in a prolonged slump for the past two years with sales and home prices falling at especially sharp rates in formerly boom areas of the country.
For March, sales were down in all regions of the country, dropping the most in the Northeast, a decline of 19.4 percent. Sales fell by 12.9 percent in the West, 12.5 percent in the Midwest and 4.6 percent in the South.
In other economic news, orders to factories for big-ticket manufactured goods fell for a third straight month in March, the longest string of declines since the 2001 recession, while applications for unemployment benefits fell by 33,000 to 342,000.
The Commerce Department said demand for durable goods dropped by 0.3 percent last month, a worse-than-expected performance that underscored the problems manufacturers are facing from a severe economic slowdown. The last time orders fell for three consecutive months was from February to April of 2001, when the country was sliding into the last recession.
The weakness in manufacturing orders was led by a 4.6 percent drop in orders for autos, a sector hard hit by soaring gasoline prices, and the weakening economy, which have cut sharply into car sales. Orders in the category that includes home appliances fell by 6.6 percent. This industry has been hurt by the two-year slump in home sales.
President Bush said Tuesday that the economy was not in a recession but a period of slower growth. However, economists who believe the country has fallen into a recession pointed to the string of declines in manufacturing orders to support their view.
"The broad swath of data in the March (orders) report is indicative of a mixed set of conditions in a factory sector that is, overall, in a mild recession," said Cliff Waldman, economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI.
The Labor Department reported that claims for unemployment benefits fell by 33,000 last week to 342,000. Economists had been expecting claims to rise by 3,000. The four-week moving average for claims fell by 7,250 to 369,500.
Even with the improvements, analysts said the weak economy is still putting greater pressures on the labor market. The unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent in March as businesses laid off the largest number of workers in five years.
Economic growth slowed to a near-standstill at the end of last year as the economy was battered by the prolonged slump in housing and a severe credit crunch that has resulted in billions of dollars of losses at many of the nation's largest financial institutions and has made it harder for consumers and businesses to get loans.
Consumer sentiment, meanwhile, has plunged to recessionary lows as Americans have also watched gasoline soar to an average price above $3.50 per gallon nationally.
The 0.3 percent drop in orders for durable goods, items expected to last at least three years, followed even bigger declines of 0.9 percent in February and 4.4 percent in January.
Orders for all transportation products fell by 4.6 percent, reflecting the big drop in demand for autos. Orders for commercial aircraft actually rose by 5.5 percent while demand for defense aircraft surged by 29.4 percent. Many defense industries have seen big increases reflecting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A key category viewed as a proxy for business investment plans showed no increase in March after a big 2 percent drop in February. Businesses have cut back on plans to expand and modernize as the economy has softened.

[2Real4me!]

Homes facing foreclosure more than doubled in 1Q from 2007
Tuesday April 29, 6:18 am ET
By Alex Veiga, AP Business Writer



Number of US homes facing foreclosure jumps 112 percent in first quarter from 2007

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The number of U.S. homes heading toward foreclosure more than doubled in the first quarter from a year earlier, as weakening property values and tighter lending left many homeowners powerless to prevent homes from being auctioned to the highest bidder, a research firm said Monday.
Among the hardest hit states were Nevada, Florida and, in particular, California, where Stockton led the nation with a foreclosure rate that was 6.6 times the national average, Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. said.
Nationwide, 649,917 homes received at least one foreclosure-related filing in the first three months of the year, up 112 percent from 306,722 during the same period last year, RealtyTrac said.
The latest tally also represents an increase of 23 percent from the fourth quarter of last year.
RealtyTrac monitors default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions.
All told, one in every 194 households received a foreclosure filing during the quarter. Foreclosure filings increased in all but four states.
The most recent quarter marked the seventh consecutive quarter of rising foreclosure activity, RealtyTrac noted.
"What would normally alleviate the foreclosure situation in a normal market is people starting to buy properties again," said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's vice president of marketing.
However, the unavailability of loans for people without perfect credit and a significant down payment is slowing the process, he said.
"It's a cycle that's going to be difficult to break, and we're certainly not at the breaking point just yet," Sharga added.
The surge in foreclosure filings also suggests that much-touted campaigns by lawmakers and the mortgage lending industry aimed at helping at-risk homeowners aren't paying off.
Hope Now, a Bush administration-organized mortgage industry group, said nearly 503,000 homeowners had received mortgage aid in the first quarter. Most of the aid was temporary, however.
Pennsylvania was a notable standout in the latest foreclosure data. The number of homes in the state to receive a foreclosure-related filing plunged 24.4 percent from a year earlier.
Sharga credited the decline to the state's foreclosure relief measures, noting that cities such as Philadelphia put in place a moratorium on all foreclosure auctions for April and implemented other measures aimed at helping slow foreclosures.
Nearly 157,000 properties were repossessed by lenders nationwide during the quarter, according to RealtyTrac.
The flood of foreclosed properties on the market has contributed to falling or stagnating home values, yet lenders have yet to implement heavy discounts on repossessed homes, Sharga said.
Nevada posted the worst foreclosure rate in the nation, with one in every 54 households receiving a foreclosure-related notice, nearly four times the national rate.
The number of properties with a filing increased 137 percent over the same quarter last year but only rose 3 percent from the fourth quarter.
California had the most properties facing foreclosure at 169,831, an increase of 213 percent from a year earlier. It also posted the second-highest foreclosure rate in the country, with one in every 78 households receiving a foreclosure-related notice.
California metro areas accounted for six of the 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates in the first quarter, RealtyTrac said.
Many of the areas -- including Stockton, Riverside-San Bernardino, Fresno, Sacramento and Bakersfield -- are located in inland areas of the state where many first-time buyers overextend themselves financially to buy properties that have plunged in value since the market peak.
"California still hasn't hit bottom," Sharga said. "We have a lot of California homes that are in early stages of default that may not be salvageable because either there's no market or financing available, or both."
Arizona had the third-highest foreclosure rate, with one in every 95 households reporting a foreclosure filing in the quarter. A total of 27,404 homes reported at least one filing, up nearly 245 percent from a year ago and up 45 percent from the last quarter of 2007.
Florida had 87,893 homes reporting at least one foreclosure filing, a 178 percent jump from the first quarter of last year and a 17 percent hike from the fourth quarter last year. That translates into a foreclosure rate of one in every 97 households.
The other states among the top 10 with the highest foreclosure rates were Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

[2Real4me!]

Home price index sinks at record clip in February
Tuesday April 29, 10:44 am ET



S&P index shows housing slump deepening; home prices plunge by record 12.7 pct in February

NEW YORK (AP) -- Housing prices dropped in February at the fastest rate ever, a widely watched index showed on Tuesday, reflecting that the housing slump is gaining momentum and showing no signs of letting up.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 cities fell by 12.7 percent in February versus last year, the largest decline since its inception in 2001. Seventeen of the 20 metro areas reported record annual declines.
The index dropped 10.7 percent in January and 9.1 percent in December.
"There is no sign of a bottom in the numbers," David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P, noting that all 20 metro areas have declined for six straight months.
Half of the cities saw home values plunge by double digits led by Las Vegas at 22.8 percent and Miami at 21.7 percent. Those two areas experienced the sharpest appreciation in 2004 and 2005 with annual increases above 50 percent and 30 percent.
Only Charlotte, N.C., posted a positive return of 1.5 percent year-over-year.
The narrower 10-city index declined 13.6 percent in February, a record drop in its two-decade history.

[NorCalRooskie]

So when should I buy???