Archive for the ‘house prices’ Category
August 19th, 2009 | 
Author: Home values continue to drop in Whatcom County – Business News …
www.bellinghamherald.com2/24/12
Since the end of 2006, the local home price index has depreciated 11.3 percent. Washington state continues to be hit particularly hard by declining home values, according to the report. The purchase-only home price index in …
Getting The Best Results From Real Estate Buying | Genealogical …
irgs.net2/25/12
As with all investments, timing is essential when it comes to purchasing real estate. As essential as real estate might be to the progress of society, its price does not continue to rise permanently. At some point, like the stock …
Home Prices Drop By Record Amount
According to the National Association of Realtors, whose records go back to 1979, the median U.S. price for an existing single-family home dropped a record 15.6% to $174,100 in the second quarter of this year.
But Home Sales Increased
Meanwhile, sales of new homes increased by 11% for new homes and 3.6% for existing homes, which suggests that it’s a buyer’s market, and that buyers are taking advantage of the falling prices.
The total dollar reduction was $27.8 billion, and the states that were hardest hit were Nevada (15%) and Florida (13%) and a quarter of would-be sellers lowered prices by around 10%.
Which States Reduced Had The Most Reductions?
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Illinois had the highest share of homes with price reductions of around 33%.
Then came,
Oregon 29%, followed by,
Washington
New Jersey
Minnesota
New Hampshire
Maryland.
Which Cities Were Worst Hit?
Jacksonville, Florida 38%
Portland, Oregon 35%
Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Boston and Seattle 34%
Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Chicago 33%
Detroit; 16%
Las Vegas 15%
Miami 13%
New York City and Phoenix 12%
San Francisco and Los Angeles 10%
* Undeveloped land and foreclosed properties were excluded from the above estimates.
Posted in 
Vast stretches of the U.S. can be now considered in a depression,
not a recession,with the unemployment
rates presently standing at,
Michigan at 15.2%
California 11.6%
Nevada 12.0%
Oregon 12.2%
Ohio 11.1%
North Carolina 11.0%
South Carolina 12.1%
Kentucky 10.9%
Tennessee 10.8%
Indiana 10.7%
The number of long-term unemployed in the U.S. (meaning those without jobs for 27 weeks or more) is now 4.4 million which represents 29% of the unemployed, and that’s the highest number since records began in 1948.
June unemployment reached 9.5 percent, which is the highest since 1983, and many parts of the country are suffering a depression and not a recession.
In total, more than 100 urban areas now have unemployment rates over 10%.
Adult male unemployment nationwide is already in double digits at 10%.
Black unemployment is 14.7%
Hispanics at 12.2%
Teenage unemployment is 24%
Black teenage unemployment close to 40%.
Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs in the automobile and construction industries, and many of those in the auto industry already feel that they may never work again, and those who were in construction say that it will take years to recover financially from the long-term unemployment.
For the last thirty years, a person that lost his job remained unemployed for an average of 15.8 weeks, but in the June average duration of unemployment was 24.5 weeks, and the number of people claiming jobless benefits reached a record 6.88 million in the week ended June 27.
Government figures show that the percentage of unemployed workers who permanently lost their jobs, as opposed to those who are supposedly on temporary layoff reached a record 53.5 percent in June.
There are around six candidates for every job that’s on offer, which is the highest since the government began keeping records, and the ratio was just over 2-1 just a year ago.
That figure of six candidates for every job is forcing people to lower their salary expectations, which in turn puts a squeeze on spending, and a recent survey suggests more than more than two-thirds of the unemployed have cut back on food expenditures.
Home-equity borrowing is a no starter for many home buyers, since house prices are down by about 25% from their 2006 peak.
Mortgage delinquencies rose to a record in the first quarter, and around one in one in every eight Americans is now either behind on his mortgage payments, or already in foreclosure.
Unlike the average European who has around six months of savings, the average American put aside only 1% of their disposable income in 2005-2006, compared with an average 6% during the previous 30 years, which leaves him or her very unprepared for long-term unemployment.
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