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October 29, 2010: Prices, Foreclosures, New Home Sales According to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller report about real estate sales in 20 major US areas, the average price for homes sold declined 0.2 percent in August; And of the 20 cities in the report, 15 of them reported declining prices. The report suggests that the declining prices are due to the number of foreclosures we are seeing now, with about 2 million homes in foreclosure, and another 2.4 million are at least 90 days behind in their mortgage payments.
The worst city for foreclosures is Las Vegas, where prices have fallen 57 percent since 2006, and are now at the same level as they were in 2000. Foreclosures have affected the prices in the Evergreen, Conifer, Pine area, but not nearly as much as it has even in Denver. Right now about 20 to 25 percent of our sales are “distressed” sales.
On another topic, sales of new homes climbed 6.6 percent in September, the second straight month of gains. While this is a good sign, new home sales are still 21.5 percent below last year. However, as with foreclosures, there is very little new construction in the Evergreen, Conifer, Pine area, so while it is a good sign for the real estate market overall, it does not affect our market that much.
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