Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Free Fall

I've not exactly been Mr. Positive on the economy, but I'm starting to enter Dr. Doom territory.

Home values in 20 large metropolitan areas across the country dropped at a record pace in October as the fallout from the financial collapse reverberated through the housing market, according to data released Tuesday.

The price of single-family homes fell 18 percent in October from a year earlier, according to the closely watched Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller Housing Index. All 20 cities reported annual price declines in October; prices in 14 of the 20 metropolitan areas surveyed fell at a record rate as the financial crisis reached a critical point.

...

Fourteen of the 20 cities in the Case-Shiller survey posted double-digit declines for the year. The relative winner was Dallas, which had the smallest yearly decline, of 3 percent. The value of a single-family house in Detroit, which has been pummeled by closing plants and the implosion of the auto industry, was less in October than it was in October 1998.


Get a house in Detroit, cheap! Trade your 6-year-old SUV for one, maybe.