Wednesday, September 22, 2010

U.S. Home Prices Fell 3.3% in July From Year Earlier

This was a bigger that expected decline.  Here's a quote:
Prices fell 0.5 percent from June, the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said in a report today. Economists had projected prices to fall 0.2 percent from the previous month, based on the average of 15 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The agency revised the previously reported May-to-June decline to 1.2 percent from 0.3 percent.
Foreclosures are boosting the supply of available properties and reducing prices, even as mortgage rates tumble to record lows. The time it would take to clear the market of homes for sale was 12.5 months in July, the highest in more than a decade of data, according to the National Association of Realtors. Banks seized a record 95,364 properties from delinquent borrowers in August, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based seller of housing data.
I wonder what the decline would be if mortgage rates were in the 5.25% range?  Even with these low rates it still not sparking a demand to purcahse homes.

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