Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Home price fell in USA 6.1%

The demand of homeHome price fell in USA 6.1% price fall specialist is watching their invest conciously,
Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell in October by the most in at least six years, a private survey showed today.
Property values fell 6.1 percent from October 2006, more than forecast, after dropping 4.9 percent in September, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index. The decrease was the biggest since the group started keeping year-over-year records in 2001. The index has fallen every month this year.
Prices will probably remain under pressure as the jump in foreclosures puts even more homes on the market just as stricter lending rules make it harder for buyers to find financing. Declining values make it harder for owners to tap home equity for extra cash, posing a risk to consumer spending.
``With supply overhang enormous and mortgage financing tougher to obtain, home prices are going to decline considerably further in the quarters ahead,'' said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc., a New York forecasting firm.
Compared with a month earlier, home prices dropped 1.4 percent, the biggest one-month decline since records began. The figures aren't seasonally adjusted, so economists prefer to focus on the year-over-year change.
The median forecast of 12 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected a 5.7 percent decline.
Broad Decline
The index is a composite of transactions in 20 metropolitan areas. Seventeen cities showed a year-over-year decline in prices, led by 12 percent slumps in Miami and Tampa, Florida. Three, including Charlotte, North Carolina, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, showed an increase from a year earlier.
All 20 areas covered showed a drop in prices compared with September.
``The current state of the single-family housing market remains grim,'' Robert Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC and a professor at Yale University, said in a statement.
Shiller and Karl Case, an economics professor at Wellesley College, created the home-price index based on research from the 1980s.
A report on Nov. 21 from the National Association of Realtors showed home prices fell in one third of U.S. cities last quarter.
The housing market may continue to weaken as an increase in foreclosures adds to a glut of unsold homes on the market, spurring sellers to cut prices, economists said.
Sales Report
Figures this week from the Commerce Department may show new homes sold at an annual rate of 718,000 in November, down from October's 728,000 rate, based on the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Sales of new houses probably will fall 8.9 percent in 2008 after a 25 percent drop this year, according to a Dec. 13 forecast from Fannie Mae, the largest mortgage buyer.
``The market is too challenging to make predictions for fiscal 2008,'' Ara Hovnanian, chief executive officer of Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., said on a conference call on Dec. 19. ``It will be a difficult year.'' The Red Bank, New Jersey- based company reported a net loss of $467 million for the three months ended Oct. 31.
Residential investment has subtracted from economic growth for the past seven quarters. Home building dropped at a 20.5 percent annual pace in the third quarter, the most since 1991.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index and another by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight track the same home over time and more accurately reflect price trends, economists said.
Price gauges from the Commerce Department and the Realtors group can be influenced by changes in the types of homes sold. Higher sales of cheaper homes relative to more-expensive properties will bias the figures down.

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