Home prices fall at record pace in first quarter

[Pale Blue Dot]

Source: MSNBC

NEW YORK - Home prices fell at the fastest annual rate ever in the first quarter, but the pace of month-to-month declines continues to slow, a closely watched housing index showed Tuesday.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller National Home Price index reported home prices tumbled by 19.1 percent in the first quarter, the most in its 21-year history.

Home prices have fallen 32.2 percent since peaking in the second quarter of 2006 and are at levels not seen since the end of 2002.

The 20-city index fell by 18.7 percent in March from the year before and the 10-city index lost 18.6 percent. Those declines were a bit better than February's and marked the second straight month the indexes didn't post record drops.

Still, there are no signs home prices have hit bottom.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30940713/

[CoffeeCat]

1. Those are very impressive drops...

...and the scary thing is that the decreases in home prices continues.

Home prices have all ready fallen 32.2 percent according to this article, and "there are no signs home prices have hit bottom".

That's devastating.

There's supposed to be an onslaught of negative economic news released this week--big, important numbers that don't bode well.

[Le Taz Hot]

3. Not to mention California's economy is about to collapse

which will have a world-wide affect. Let's add to that the fact that the San Joaquin Valley is getting almost no water this year which means grocery prices are going to go WAAAAAY up. If you can/preserve/freeze, do as much as you can as early as you can.

[dgibby]

8. Do you think the Obama administration will decide that Calif. is too big to fail?

(a legit. question, not snark or sarcasm)

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

16. What can he do? California needs to be saved from itself

As long as it is possible to force the state to spend money it doesn't have and make it impossible to raise the shortfall by ballot proposition we will just keep coming back again and again and again.

[Le Taz Hot]

17. He's already indicated there will be no bailout

money for the states -- which will lose him MILLIONS of votes in 2012. California's budgetary problems have little to do with what most people think - Prop. 13 and everything to do with subjects we're not allowed to discuss on DU.

[MADem]

2. Taxes aren't following the trend, though, are they? nt

[Wizard777]

5. People should be able to sue their HOA and Condo Ass. for fraud.

They have taken it upon themselves to be the guardians of home values. They use that claim to justify what would otherwise be considered merciless harassment of home owners and the absolute destruction of property rights. In this economy there is no amount of yard work or no house color that will restore the value of your home. There is absolutely nothing they can do to restore the value of your home. So they all should be sued for the sheer fraud behind those claims.

[Mudoria]

6. If you don't want to be in a HOA don't buy a house there...

[Wizard777]

9. Freedom of association is preserved by freedom FROM association.

What you are saying is like saying if you don't want to be catholic and live by their rules. Don't buy a home in a community that has a catholic church in it. Can we have more than one HOA in an area like we can have more than church? If you want to form a HOA. That's fine but I should not be compelled to be a member of that HOA or KKK or any other hate and discord driven organization. Oh hell any other organization period.

[WriteDown]

10. Yeah!

And people shouldn't have to obey silly rules like school "districts." :eyes: Some people seek out HOA's because they keep neighborhoods nice. Some avoid them due to some pretty draconian rules. The only thing that matters is that you have a choice in where you decide to buy.

[Waiting For Everyman]

14. Bullshit.

HOAs are local governments according to the courts, and should have limits on what they can do, just the same as any municapal government. The only reason why they don't, is the legions of law firms lobbying state governments to bloodsuck unlimited legal fees funneled to them from the overblown "management companies", and for whom these obscure clauses they write into homeowners' deeds are set up to be an unlimited perpetual cash cow at homeowners' expense.

My HOA could get by with a bookkeeper and a one-person local attorney on call. Instead, we have a full time "management company" which in turn continuously thinks up ways to churn fees to a hand-in-glove law firm with marble elevators. Guess who pays for that? And what do we get from it - zip.

Nobody should automatically have to pay unlimited attorneys fees for actions which were bogus in the first place. It's just more of the parasite industry which is killing us all.

[WriteDown]

15. So I take it you are running for a spot on your HOA

to change things? Right? Right? I will wait for the inevitable excuse.

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[OhioChick]

7. But...things are good....the Dow is up! n/t

[NickB79]

11. Maybe my wife and I can afford a house in the next year or two

We feel bad for some of our friends who built/bought in during the market peak, but we need a home too and they're still too expensive for anyone who isn't upper middle class.

[AnneD]

12. Hubby and I are in the same boat

we are waiting and saving.

[Igel]

13. Less in some places than in others.

http://www.har.com/mls/dispPressRelease.cfm

Granted, it's from the Houston area realtor association, but the numbers are still pretty good. (You can get slightly different numbers for things like median house price from other sources, but the trends are the same.)

Houston's down from a year ago, but in the last few months things have largely stabilized. They also missed most of the worst last year and the year before, largely because Houston didn't have the huge real-estate bubble seen elsewhere. (Those who have been hit the hardest were large, national builders, although there have been a lot of subprime foreclosures in certain neighbhorhoods.)