The standard price for a house fell 14% to $169,000 in the first quarter from a year earlier, the National Association of Realtors reported. This is an unprecedented drop that no one has seen in thirty years.
The going price for the 4 months is at 26% from a peak of $227,600 in the third quarter of 2005. The newest mean price was down from a year earlier in 134 of the 152 metro areas included in the survey.
The largest rise was in the Cumberland area of Maryland and West Virginia, where the price climbed 21% to $114,900. Long & Foster a real-estate broker in Cumberland, Md., said the area is favorable retirees and second-home buyers, a lot of the buyers seem to be coming from Washington and Baltimore.
The lowly mean price among the suburban areas was $30,300 in Saginaw, Mich., and the largest was $570,000 in Honolulu. Most of the areas with the lowest prices are in troubled parts of the industrial Midwest. But an overstock of homes in Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., pushed the median down 59% from a year earlier to $87,300 — ranking it just below Gary, Ind., which, at $92,000, was down 26%.
While rising joblessness and a recession economy in the United States has played an important factor in the median for the housing market, what this has also done has made a buyer?s market for families who are just starting out. These used homes are in many cases like new, only having been lived in a few years at best. The time to buy is not just now but for the next ten years or more.
The great number of unsold, foreclosed, and flipped (constantly sold and resold houses) has caused a glut in the market. Because of this a number realtors are frantic to get these houses off their hands. The reason for this is because as long as these houses sit on the ground the realtors have to pay property taxes on the houses.
While this is a boon to many first time home buyers it is a nightmare for a already teetering American economy. These old houses will have to be sold on the cheap in order for realtors to get the inventory off their hands.
As stated before this is a boon to first time home buyers but the ultimate problem will be that the houses they buy will decrease or become stagnant in value over time. This means a poor investment for many. But the risks are worth due to the fact that a new large number of first time home buyers are projected to come in every seven years.
It has been estimated that in the next 10 years prices will stabilize and then begin to rise again. So buy a house now!
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