Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Home Prices Post Record Drop

Hey don't worry, the fools who caused this mess all walked away with millions while the average homeowner has been clobbered.
Home prices fell 6.7 percent in October, compared with a year ago, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 10-city home-price index, a record drop as housing markets continued to deteriorate.

It was the largest drop in more than 16 years and marked the 10th consecutive month of price depreciation and 23 months of decelerating returns.

"No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim," said Robert J. Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets in a release.

Case-Shiller's 20-city index fell 6.1 percent. Shiller noted that 11 of the markets in the 20-city index posted a record fall.

Some economists are beginning to lower their expectations for housing markets, predicting a longer and deeper price slump than they had previously forecast.

Several factors are hurting markets: Inventories are high with an 11-month supply of homes already for sale; a spike in foreclosures has added to the supply; and there are many vacant homes on the market, which tend to have very motivated sellers, depressing prices more quickly.
This is the result of deregulation and greed. Unfortunately greed will always be present which is why we need more oversight not less. This idea that industry will police itself is insane and the proof as they say is in the pudding.

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