Tell me more ×
Personal Finance & Money Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people who want to be financially literate. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 7 down vote favorite

Obviously because of the global financial crisis, I've been hearing a lot about the US property market crash. I have a feeling something similar is waiting to happen in Australia so I would like to do my research and see exactly how this is happening.

I was wondering, is the decline in property prices uniform across like every location within the US? Is it only happening in certain states where as other states are unaffected? Are there places where the property prices are still rising? Is it like only outer suburban areas but like inner city locations are unaffected?

If anyone can point me to any sources for how exactly the property market has been affected, that would be much appreciated.

share|improve this question
On a side note, I don't think they're bottomed (everywhere at least). Based on the anecdotal evidence of for numbers of sale signs and how long they stay up, I'd say we have a way to go in some areas. – C. Ross♦ Mar 7 '11 at 15:16
@C. Ross - Case Shiller says we're in for a double dip here in the US, and they tend to be a pretty good source. At the same time a few metro areas are rising. – justkt Mar 8 '11 at 13:21
@justkt It's awful hard to predict the future. – C. Ross♦ Mar 8 '11 at 13:42
And the risk that a lot of banks are sitting on foreclosed inventory that isn't even up for sale. – Chris Kaminski Mar 10 '11 at 16:53

3 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

It's not uniform at all. Some states already stabilized the real estate prices, other keep losing value. Florida, Nevada and California were probably hit the most. In some parts of New York City prices never really went down (IMHO).

Here is just one of the maps showing foreclosure rates for 2010:

share|improve this answer
thanks great resource there. what about the prices relative to within each city? IS it uniform there? If not, what is typical about the location that are holding their price and ones that aren't? – Joe.E Mar 5 '11 at 23:05
That's hard to answer. All big cities are unique in their own way. Maybe it's the proximity of the central park, maybe the companies that have offices in NYC. – Vitalik Mar 7 '11 at 12:36
1  
The housing follows the jobs. In an area where there is low unemployment people are still able to pay their mortgages and folks are still jumping into the market (which is what makes DC, San Francisco, New York, etc. still strong markets). In areas with higher unemployment there are more distressed sales and fewer buyers. – justkt Mar 8 '11 at 13:21
up vote 2 down vote

As the saying goes real estate is about location location location. Some local areas did much worse than others, in my area Raleigh NC price declines were smaller than in many of the so called sand states FL, CA, NV, AZ. The largest price declines and the longest times on the market here were in the more expensive homes (400k+). Less expensive homes sold quicker and held their prices better during the downturn.

Here is a breakdown of the price changes since 2007 for major US markets from case-Shiller (table near the bottom).

Something else to consider is that home prices in outer suburbs go down when gas prices go up.

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

It isn't uniform for the most part, but marginal properties were punished to varying degrees.

At the height of the boom, houses with structural problems, awful locations or other issues were only discounted slightly. Today, the assessors are brutal about value, and banks will not lend until things are fixed.

No mortgage == no sale, so the prices for those properties are in freefall everywhere.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.