The average price of a single-family home ended 2011 at a new low for the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index.
Prices dropped 3.8% in the fourth quarter to levels last seen in 2002.
Both the closely watched 20-city composite index and 10-city index declined 1.1% in December from a month earlier. The larger, benchmark index fell 3.9% and the 10-city index for December was 4% from a year earlier.
Of the top 20 largest metropolitan areas, just Miami at 0.2% and Phoenix at 0.8% experienced price appreciation in December from the prior month. Home prices in Atlanta fell 12.8% from a year earlier and Detroit was the only area to post a positive annual return, inching 0.5% higher than December 2010.
“In terms of prices, the housing market ended 2011 on a very disappointing note,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee. “With this month’s report, we saw all three composites hit new record lows. While we thought we saw some signs of stabilization in the middle of 2011, it appears that neither the economy nor consumer confidence was strong enough to move the market in a positive direction as the year ended.”
He said S&P believed the home prices bottomed out earlier, but the declines in December pushed the national composite to 33.8% off the 2006 peak and at a new low.
I’m sure that Greg and Liberalman will find a way to make this failure Bush’s fault.
@Common Sense:
I was actually wondering what “Big” industry the leftists would use as a scapegoat here. Maybe the Big Realtor Industry. Or, the Big Home Builder industry. No, no, that’s wrong. They’ll just blame Big Banking. That seems to work with every other bad economic news item lately.
As you guys root for home prices to go lower how bout a 2 thumbs up for the stock market. Up a resounding 50% since 1/1/2009.
rich wheeler, the home prices need to come down and the piper has to be paid. We can’t keep the rates this low to bolster up unnaturally high prices in homes without losing all monetary abilities to counter inflation.
Secondly, wages are not so high as to justify these prices. If you have a problem recognizing an overvalued product – real estate – then maybe this picture will help you out. US home price averages from 1970 to 2011. Maybe the colors will help drive the message home, instead of the b/w version above.
As for the stock market, I always celebrate when almost half of invested working American’s aren’t taking a bath on their pensions as well as in their daily lives for expenses and tanking home values. But I fear I’m not alone in this seeing this as the perceptual calm before the storm. However that is a post all it’s own to come.
So enjoy the day while you can. But if you think this is any indicator, you might find yourself proverbially on a ledge with a few others that are overly confident in fantasy.
@Richard Wheeler:
Proving you are a hypocrite again I see. It was people like you talking down a decent economy under Bush and trying to make us lose in Iraq all so you could get political power.
The stock market is close to 13k. Big deal. It isn’t a reflection of the state of the economy. Then again there was just a study released about how liberals can’t face reality so it’s no surprise you aren’t capable of seeing what’s right in front of you.
Mata You’ve been calling for a stock market pullback the last 2000 points.We’ve been in agreement R.E. values inflated but believe it’s time to buy.
H.R, you don’t have a clue what my sentiments were regarding the markets during the Bush years and you can be damn sure I’ve never rooted against our troops.
As for reality you could use a dose. Romney’s your Nom. That’s for starters.
The stock market as a leading indicator has been predicting a slow but steady economic recovery.The R,E, market,a traditional lagging indicator, should bottom and start heading slowly up in 3rd or 4th quarter. Like a top, we’ll only know the bottom in hindsight.
Speaking of reality doses in need, rich, the market has been buoyed up by the promises of world central banks’ cash infusion in the attempts to keep the Eurozone from collapsing. Just as the markets loved making cash on the taxpayers injected dollars, they love Euro central banks doing the same.
This is not a sustainable practice. When they can no longer keep the problems at bay and cut off the central banks money supply, the toilet flush begins. In the interim, the US looks like the prom queen only because the Euro nations and their currency look like the evil step sisters.
Ride the wave while you can. But the free money will not last forever.