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Rick Bowmer / AP
A home is shown for sale. The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 0.6 percent from August on a seasonally adjusted basis.
By msnbc.com news services
U.S. single-family home prices declined in September, highlighting the fragility of a market that is struggling to get back on its feet, a closely watched survey showed Tuesday.
The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 0.6 percent from August on a seasonally adjusted basis. A Reuters poll of economists had forecast no change.
Prices in August were also revised to show a decline of 0.3 percent after originally being reported as unchanged.
“The broader trend here is that home prices over the last few months continue to get weaker,” David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, told CNBC.
Consumer attitude have gotten a lot of more negative, particularly when it comes to making a long-term commitment, such as buying a home, Blitzer added.
The index has leveled off in recent months and analysts are hoping the market is at least stabilizing.
"Over the last year home prices in most cities drifted lower," Blitzer said. "The plunging collapse of prices seen in 2007-2009 seems to be behind us. Any chance for a sustained recovery will probably need a stronger economy."
For the third quarter, prices were down 1.2 percent from the previous quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis and were down 3.9 percent from the third quarter a year ago.
Compared to a year ago, price declines in the 20 cities continued to improve in September and were down 3.6 percent after a year over year decline of 3.8 percent the month before.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Any suprise? Fannie and Freddie still being propped up by Obama, Frank and the leftists at a cost of over $150 Billion and counting while taxpayers finance $12 million executive bonuses payable to high rankiing democrats at Fannie and Freddie who should be indicted for funneling money to Obama's reelcetion campaign out of these bonuses financed by hard working citizens. Our government has done NOTHING to fix the housing mess spawned by Barney Frank and the Leftists determined to "spread the wealth" to democrats special interest groups.
Welcome to Obama's America. Are all of you democrats happy with the direction this country is going?
JH - I have no love for either the democrats or the republicans, but the trajectory we were on when Obama took office was more scary than it is today. All these bailouts and special programs might just be putting off an inevitable economic collapse, but it's fairly certain the collapse would have already happened without them (I'm talking REAL pain ... 35% unemployment, DOW in the mid-2000's, home prices another 50% lower ...)
What a totally worthless whitewashed article, even when the news is blatantly awful MSNBC attempts to make it sound rosey:
"Compared to a year ago, price declines in the 20 cities continued to improve"
The price declines continued to improve? give us a break.
Here is a reality based article:
Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Decline More Than Forecast
"Home prices adjusted for seasonal variations fell 0.6 percent in September from the prior month, the biggest decrease since March, after falling 0.3 percent in August. Unadjusted prices also decreased 0.6 percent from August as 17 of 20 cities showed declines. Only Washington, New York and Portland, Oregon, showed gains.
Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix posted new post peak lows in September, the report showed.
Demand is on pace to reach 301,000 this year, less than the 323,000 homes sold in 2010, which marked the fewest sales since data-keeping began in 1963."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-29/home-prices-in-20-u-s-cities-fell-more-than-forecast-in-year-to-september.html
Home prices are still a bubble compared to historic norm. According to case shiller index, we are still 20% above long term averages. Typical bottom comes at 20% below average. But this is not your typical recession. This is a deflationary crash. This is Great Depression material. These averages themselves are based on a money supply that was inflated by borrowing for many decades. When the money supply deflates, existing prices and salaries cannot be sustained:
www.kondratieffwavecycle.com/housing-bubble-bust/
Whatever you do, do not get into debt. If you want to buy, buy cash down. Even if prices do not fall, in many cases, rent is cheaper if you consider mortgage interest, property taxes, condo fees, maintenance, lost interest/investment income...
Lunatic
I get tired of hearing how bad things were when Obama took office. He was fully aware of how bad things were headed. He asked for the job so he could bring us together and get over everything. He has failed in that matter. He has divided us and has not done one thing to get us going in the right direction. You must also keep in mind that the trajectory you speak of started in late 2007. The democrats told us to elect them in 2006 and they would fix everything that Bush screwed up. We elected them in a landslide and things have gone downhill ever since. They got into office and started their spending spree immediately, with George Bush's assistance. After the election of President Obama the spending went throught the roof. Our government can not spend money like they are doing and expect us in the middle class to not be affected. Afterall, we pay the bills in this country. We can not depend on only the "rich' to pay our bills since they are already paying the vast majority of them. This IS Obama's economy. This is the Democrat parties economy. I am sick of it. I am also sick of the division in this country that has been brought to us by this administration. It is time for Obama to go back to Chicago where they thrive on this type of division. He has not been good for the country.
Who comes up with the titles for these stories? The headline should read " US home prices return to original value after being over inflated for 20yrs".
Barney Frank needs a 'Mission Accomplished' t-shirt.
Housing is based on sound fundamentals?
Even after Ron Paul explained to him why housing would collapse he didn't understand. Wonder if he gets it yet?
michaelkl,
The bubble has burst and the deep drops have subsided. Could it start again, perhaps, but I believe that it will be avoided as much as possible if the economy does not stablize. With the election on the horizon, neither party will be willing to give the proverbial 'finger' to the American public and sit back and allow additional deterioration. Each side, right now, is posturing to take command in the 2012 race. Neither side wants to be seen (i.e. political suicide) as the problem and each wants to be the solution, however that solution approach varies tremendously, hence the conundrum we are in as an American society.
So to your point of another 40% to go to get to a true bottom. Most housing markets are at 2000-ish levels right now and a 40% drop from today's values would put most markets back into the late 80's and nearly everyone (I'd speculate 90%+) would be underwater in their homes. That would be catastrophic in so many ways. The politicians are way too concerned about the (re-)election process to allow anything remotely close to that to happen. A 'lose lose' situation is not an option.
As long as it pisses you off, yes!
If you want to know where our real estate is going, just look at Japan. We have a long time before we hit bottom, Japan home prices have been going down for 15 years. Because of our debt problems we will not create large numbers of jobs and for that reason there will be no recovery.
And Japan owns its own debt plus is a huge creditor.
The purpose of almost all headlines is to create a divisive atmosphere amongst the American people while maintaining a diversion from the core problem... an oppressive government controlled by a corrupt Political Class.
We, the American people, have lost control of our governing system. Unless we remove and replace this government with the one intended for us by our Forefathers, we cannot address the Dictators of our Foreign and Domestic policies...Corporate American profiteers, greedy Banking families, and Wall Street manipulators.
Our Forefathers stated that it is every Citizens DUTY and OBLIGATION to remove any government that becomes oppressive or corrupt...this one has certainly qualified on both counts for quite a while.
Americans have been sacrificing their lives currently and throughout their History defending Freedom, Liberty, and Justice for foreigners on foreign soil throughout the World. What makes anyone think they won't do the same for themselves on their own soil?
Has the will of the American people deteriorated to a point that we have become such a passive, complacent Society allowing our destiny to be decided by oppressors?
Domingo you are in serious need of long-term institutionalization with obvious paranoid delusions - you need to go try living in a country where armed tribesmen regularly rise in rebellion, just please, go check out what life is like in places where armed nuts continually overthrow one another. There is no lack of this type of country for your enjoyment: Somalia, Congo, Pakistan, Liberia, etc. Please go now, and take your gun collection and Bill O'Reilly paraphernalia. Ciao.
Tommy,
Domingo does seem extreme but there is some substance there. Corruption? Check. Divided parties that can't agree to $1.2 T in cuts when we have over $116 T in unfunded liabilities coming our way? Check. This also isn't just the Dems fault or the Repubs fault. It's the fault of the system, past events and the current cast of characters. Campaign contributions (read: political favors), lobbyist pacts to prevent those that can pay their fair share from paying their fair share. This list goes on.
I guess Domingo's point is when is enough enough? Do we need to have a financial crash and major debt default before an uprising starts? Can it be avoided? If so, how? How much more in debt do we need to go before what happened in Greece happens here?
It's not enough to just tell someone to go live where life is for crap. We have some real problems that must be addressed now rather than later to avoid becoming one of those crappy nations. Either the fearless leaders at the top start fixing the real problems or eventually something is going to break. The first has been the OWS movement, but there will be more if nothing improves.
Tiggle...
The motivation of my statements is based on our History, facts, and a lot of research. Since the early 1900's and the illegal passage of the Federal Reserve Act, the American dollars purchasing power has fallen to 3 cents or 3% of what it was then. Inflation and/or deflation of the American dollar in their true definition is controlled by privately owned banking families with one goal in mind...consolidation of the Nations power and wealth.
Corporate America dictates Socio-economic policies and self-serving legislation through financially influencing our Political Class (nothing less than bribery leading to outright control). Once Corporations legally insulated themselves from the publics will, their policy of wage supression was aggresively pursued covering at least the past forty years. (A short must read: 'The Hidden History of Corporations in the United States').
Gotta go, be right back.
Hunker down folks. It used to be; "home is where the heart is"...instead of an investment vehicle. I'm just glad I built a house barely sufficient for a family of four...now one off in college...another 4 years till end of high school. The $165,000 single-level (now valued at $130,000) is paid for. Guess the little lady and I will live and die here.
Sure beats being on the street. ps; Barney...hope you bask in your wonderful Freddie-Fanny accomplishment... thanks a pant-load rubber-lips.
What did everybody think when the price of houses were going up so fast. It was a gimmic. The price of houses will continue to fall untill they reach their real value.
Unless you live in a tent at a KOA camp ground you either have to rent or purchase a home for your family. Why worry about the fragility of the market unless you are a real estate agent, home builder, investor or real estate banker that has made flaky loans.
Potterville courtesy of liberal policies.
James: I keep trying to point this out to you: This recession was brought to you by Bush that's B-U-S-H or right wing conservatives. Let me spell that for you C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-V-E-S. No oversight by the SEC that allowed the investment banks to leverage their capital 40 times. Now they are all bank holding companies. I don't call greed, caused by no regulation, that brought our country to its knees, a good thing.
Taco
You're wrong. The democrats and P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E-S share in the blame. In fact Barney Frank is the number one idiot to blame for the housing mess. He was an O-B-S-T-R-U-C-T-I-O-N-I-S-T when it came time to reform the financial dealings in the housing industry. Both Barney and the Congressional Black Caucus.
I wish that were true. I suggest reading the book "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis. This will explain what happened and why it happened from a guy who did all the interviews in regards to all the right people. Barney Frank is like all politicians whether republican or democrat they love to give away money to who ever will support them in their re-election. Barney isn't running again so I guess he'll scrub history just like all the rest are doing. jmm
Madison, do you ever listen to anything but Fox? As usual you get it completely wrong. And the push on Fanny and Freddy was biggest under W, remember the "ownership society" he pushed? Besides, your complaint is nonsensical, if you want to really see prices tank then go ahead and pull the rug out from Fanny and Freddy, whose main mission was and remains facilitating credit for home purchases. Please don't make such silly posts, read up, sir.
A study was done where folks who listen to FOX are less informed than any other group including those who do not even listen to TV news. FOX is nothing more than a conservative garbage can where bad ideas and stale rehash is considered good. I used to love listening to Bill O'Reilly but after catching him in lies about the crash and some other things that just weren't true I'm glad I left. If I had stayed with FOX I might be just as uninformed as everyone else who listens to FOX.
Taco - who did that study? MSNBC? Just kidding, that study has ben proven wrong. So once again, you're wrong.
Fox News viewers are less informed than people who don't watch any news, according to a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
The poll surveyed New Jersey residents about the uprisings in Egypt and the Middle East, and where they get their news sources. The study, which controlled for demographic factors like education and partisanship, found that "people who watch Fox News are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government" and "6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government" compared to those who watch no news.
Overall, 53% of all respondents knew that Egyptians successfully overthrew Hosni Mubarak and 48% knew that Syrians have yet to overthrow their government.
Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson, explained in a statement, "Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News. Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all."
I have seen nothing that refutes your contention that this is untrue please point it out.Thanks
Why no figures for MSNBC viewers? Sorry Taco, your poll is very suspect. And 612 New Jersey residents??
PolitiFact pointed out to John Stewart last summer that he was wrong about FOX viewers being misinformed. So we have two sides to this issue. I will not accept a poll from a small sampling of New Jersey residents when no mention of the other cable news station, MSNBC, is made.
My house in Alabama has dropped in value from $47,000 to $12,000. And .. the other houses in the neighborhood have dropped in similiar fashion. What the heck is happeing in this market to make this happen and values drop so drastically?????
If the price of homes is still inflated then guess what..... So is the price of everything that goes into building one because you can't build new cheap enough for this market no mater how hard you try even if you own the land outright. So, how is that lumber bubble going? I hear carpet and drywall are still way over priced and concrete.... forget about it.
Values are getting run into the ground by scared appraisers and the bad news is running off any buyers which in turn feeds the problem. Face it, we are well into this run away snowball of bad economy.
You hit the nail on the head. I have not seen a single home appraise for at or above replacement cost in recent days. Very few people are buying new because the value proposition just doesn't exist. There are very few areas of the country (if any...maybe Hawaii or California dince the land is the primary cost) that you can build versus buy existing and even be at a break even.
The house we just bought appraised for $10K above the contract price. Our agent was amazed and noted that that hardly ever happens these days. Of course, we've had to put $20K into the house so far, so...do the math. :(
Bottom line is that most everyone is trying to get a rock bottom price and waiting and waiting for that. Look what has happened in the car market. Used car values are UP since people can't afford the new cars or don't have the credit to get a new car now. A similar thing will happen as the 5 year adjustable mortgages all flush out over the next 12 months or so from the peak of the market and foreclosures start to subside. The value is in the existing market...builders are going to continue to struggle for the next 5 years, at least.
Stop using your home for a "checkbook", and live within your means, the rest will take care of itself!
my house is worth exactly the same as it was when i built it in the early eighties,a nice home to raise a family in a northern climate
I'm sorry people, but the myth that a "used" house somehow gains in value just by ageing is the reason why the housing market tanked in the first place. The only way an ageing assets values can manage to outplace inflation and depreciation is if the demand for the asset increases. You flood the market and demand drops. You allow anyone who can fog a mirror get a mortgage and the demand plummets when that becomes unsustainable.
And really, do you really think the McMansions they produce now get better with age?
But, good news, consumer confidence is up. Yea right! The five people they interviewed have not been put out on the street, well at least not yet. American Airlines, bankrupt, housing in another slide, consumers put themselves in deeper debt this past weekend, and yup, apparently everyone is happy! If two storys have to run at the same time, don't make them contradict each other!
But, good news, consumer confidence is up. Yea right! The five people they interviewed have not been put out on the street, well at least not yet. American Airlines, bankrupt, housing in another slide, consumers put themselves in deeper debt this past weekend, the retailers didn't make a dime on the sales, but yet, apparently everyone is happy! If two storys have to run at the same time, don't make them contradict each other!
When you think about what ha just happened, lenders made loans for home puchases to folks who bought the house and were sold an up front monthly payment that was affordable even thoug they could not afford the house itself over the long run. The appreciation disease inflating housing costs 10-40% per year while incomes grew at 3% was artificial caused by a demand based on the unaffodable loans. The primary fact of the problem with the housing market is that people cannot afford to buy homes. Home prices need to shrink until homes become affordable again-plan and simple. Now days, homes are kind of like new cars where things that years ago when they were afordable, things that used to be options are now "standard equipment". Dealers emphasized selling options, huge mark up and profit items which huge mark up and profit items are now just added into the cost of the vehicle. (This took the place of planned obsolesence to create profits.) The same is tru with housing, used to be yo bought a house and got a stove and refrigerator included-maybe a screen door. Houses were affordable to average wage and lower wage workers. Now you are sold built in every piece of crap thing that the new buyers does not need but must have to be cool. Do without all that crap, add it as your income grows and homes will become affordable again-maybe-there is still the sellers greed factor/disease.
lets say you make 60,00 a year..with mortgage, car pmt(s), kids, food, Ins, elec, gas, etc,etc. So you want to buy a 250,000 home. You know darn well your income won't support it, but because a real estate agent, can crunch numbers, to make it look like you can, you go and buy it. 2 years down the road, no raise in sight, you start to feel the pinch. Everything else goes up. Now you want to sell..Guess what , the house isn't worth what you bought it for. So you can sell at a (loss), or stay there and feel the heat even more. The list goes on , and on for millions on Americans, who were duped into thinking they can afford something they can't. Glad they don't bank for me..I don't feel sorry for the "keeping with the Jones" people...Live within your means, and you will be a lot happier..