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Home Prices Continue Slide Down

NEW YORK — A closely watched index shows home prices dropped by the sharpest annual rate on record in October.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city housing index released Tuesday fell by a record 18 percent from October last year, the largest drop since its inception in 2000. The 10-city index tumbled 19.1 percent, its biggest decline in its 21-year history.

Both indices have recorded year-over-year declines for 22 straight months. Prices are at levels not seen since March 2004.

Greenspan Says Housing Prices Nowhere Near Bottom

July 31 (Bloomberg) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said falling U.S. home prices are “nowhere near the bottom” and the resulting market turmoil isn’t showing signs of abating.

More Americans filed claims for unemployment insurance last week than at any time in more than five years, the Labor Department said. Fed policy makers have cut the benchmark rate to 2 percent from 5.25 percent since September, halting the reductions in June amid rising concern about inflation.

When Will Home Prices Stop Falling?

The answer is critical to millions of American homeowners who are watching their home equity melt away or are unable to move because falling values have sent potential buyers to the sidelines.

In the latest evidence that prices are still sliding, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday that the median price of existing homes sold in June fell to $215,000, down 6.1 percent from a year ago. Sales fell 2.6 percent from the month before — far more than analysts had expected.

For starters, a lot depends on whether anything can be done to stop the ongoing wave of home foreclosures. As the inventory of bank-owned properties keeps rising, lenders have become eager sellers, hoping to get those properties off their books before prices fall further.

For the same reason, potential buyers are either waiting on the sidelines or making fire-sale bids. A surplus of motivated sellers and a dearth of interested buyers is pretty much the formula for further prices declines.

Congress this week finally passed a major housing bill after nearly a year of debate, but the measure is expected to help relatively few borrowers.