CHICAGO HOME PRICES DROP - BUT BEAT NATIONAL AVERAGE
3.2% DROP IN CHICAGO AREA - 6.7% ACROSS U.S. IS WORSE SINCE 1991!
For the tenth consecutive month, average resale home prices trended downward across the country for the month of October, 2007. according to the Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. The index compares sales for this October, to those of October, 2006. This represented the biggest decline since the monthly survey began in 1988, and worst comparative falloff since April, 1991, when year-over-year prices dropped 6.3%.
Across Chicago and the suburbs, homesellers fared much better than those in Metro Detroit MI, where average year-over-year resales fell 11.3 percent in October.
"Previously, prices were falling just in hot markets but we're now seeing it spread down the East Coast and across to the Midwest," said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody's Economy .com, a research firm in West Chester, Pa.
"Overbuilding, tightened lending standards and weak demand that reflects a slowdown in the growth of jobs and incomes are causing the price declines," said Sweet.
"There will be downward pressure on prices through 2008 and perhaps into 2009," Sweet said.
The Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller Index compares home prices, year-to-year, in the Top 10 U.S. Metro Areas. When expanded to the Top 20, 11 cities posted record monthly declines. Miami FL year-over-year prices fell 12.4 percent, Tampa - 11.8%. Out west, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and San Diego also posted year-over-year declines in the double-digits. The lowest price drops of the Top 20 Metro Markets came from Atlanta GA and Dallas TX, which posted a 0.7% and 0.1% year-over-year price drop respectively.
On the bright side - three U.S. Metro Areas posted year-over-year gains, between October, 2006 and October, 2007. Charlotte NC posted a 4.3 percent average price increase, while Seattle WA and Portland OR posted more modest increases.
San Diego CA posted the highest month-to-month price decline. Between September and October, 2007, the average price of home resales fell 2.6%.
Click here for today's article in the Chicago Tribune, written by reporter Susan Diesenhouse, and more information.
DEAN MOSS & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO
