Home Prices Keep Sliding

Home Prices Keep Sliding  

 

The air continues to seep out of the U.S. housing market, according to the latest data, and some economists are warning that prices will keep declining through much of 2007.

 

The National Association of Realtors reported the biggest drop in home prices since the trade group began compiling price data in 1968. Specifically, the association said the median price for home sales completed in September was $220,000, down 2.2% from a year earlier. That matched a revised 2.2% decline in August. In addition to being the largest price drops in at least 38 years, the back-to-back declines are the first time median home prices have fallen since 1995

 

Other data gathered by The Wall Street Journal show large inventories of unsold homes and declining price trends in most major metropolitan areas.

 

"Housing is still contracting," says Gregory Miller, chief economist at SunTrust Banks Inc. in Atlanta. "We haven't yet found the bottom." Mr. Miller doesn't expect house prices to resume their usual rising trend until 2008.

 

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