Posted on 09/25/2007 6:17:30 AM PDT by zencat
The decline in U.S. home prices accelerated nationwide in July, with prices posting the steepest drop in 16 years, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday. Home prices have fallen by more every month since the beginning of the year.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What goes up....
Good! Now lower my property tax!
Careful, you might get a sample there.
Good, now maybe the people looking to get into the market won't have to fight speculators and house flippers. Now the problem will be to find a house that wasn't thrown up by a bunch of yahoos who cut corners everywhere they could.
Actually what will happen is they will lower the assessed value to reflect current conditions and then raise the rate per $100 to maintain the status quo.
Funny. There is this house we looked at about 4 months ago. It is a cedar wood sided house. Nice looking. They wanted $119,900 for it. Today, it was relisted for $126,000. They have done nothing to it to add this additional value. It just sits empty. Yet, they raise the price?? It has been on the market for nearly a year and no one is living in it. Go figure.
So they can appear to give in to negotiations? “OK, we’ll take $121,000”
Or illegals.
When I was house-hunting, I started by ignoring new construction. ("New" in that context gets older every year.)
Rule #1: When a bubble pops, you don’t cut rates to reinflate it.
Buy! Buy! Buy! :)
The funny thing is that there will be idiots screaming “INFLATION!” as housing prices keep falling.
You can’t make this stuff up...
Just happened here in Monmouth County NJ. My assessed value went down but it's costing me an extra 2K per year.
I always prefer houses built during the sixties and seventies - before the new methods and materials. My house was built in 1963. All the materials are top notch and the methods solid. The new houses scare the crap out of me. Also, the poor finish most exhibit demonstrate unskilled labor rather than craftsmen.
Why wasn’t it inflation when the media was moaning about no one being able to even get in the market because the prices were so high?
Is it good inflation when hard assets appreciate off the charts and are pushed out of reach of buyers?
Inquiring minds and all that rot...
>> Home prices have fallen by more every month since the beginning of the year. <<
Hardly surprising, given that they are using an index which measures the current month to the same month a year ago.
The obvious question is which ten cities, and how are they weighted? If they are weighted simply by the number of residents, any list of ten cities which includes NYC is going to be utterly dominated by it. And why cities, rather than metropolitan areas? Is that foolishness the journalists’ or that of the index creators? The bubble was far larger in cities than outside of cities, due to the limitations on housing construction.
If the index includes such cities as Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc., I’ll be more impressed. But if it’s only Boston, San Diego, Houston, etc., fuggeddabddit.
In all fairness, it’s considered “good inflation” when it’s inflation of an investment as opposed to a consumed product (food, energy).
The problem is that all the chattering class forgets that for most people, homes aren’t primarily an investment. What helps them to overlook this fact is the sense of “well, I got mine!” If the news were written by the interns (or, at least if the interns weren’t trying to write in the voices of their overlo-— I mean bosses), the perspective would be very different, I suppose.
where? My local paper noted a 3% rise in prices.
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