U.S. Home Prices: ‘Double-Dip’ Confirmed

U.S. home prices hit their lowest level since the beginning of the recession, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index released today.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Home prices hit another new low in the first quarter, down 5.1% from a year ago to levels not reached since 2002.

It was the third straight quarterly drop for the S&P/Case-Shiller national home price index, which was released Tuesday.

Prices are now down 32.7% from their peak set five years ago.

“Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight,” said David Blitzer, spokesman for Standard and Poor’s.

The index covers 80% of the housing market, and this month’s report confirmed “a double-dip in home prices across much of the nation,” said Blitzer.

The housing market went through a brief recovery period starting in mid-2009, recovering nearly 5% of earlier losses. After homebuyer tax credits expired last April, the slump resumed.

A separate S&P/Case-Shiller index covering 20 major cities also dropped during March, the index’s eighth straight monthly decline.

Of the 20 cities, only Washington has posted a home-price gain: 4.3% over the past 12 months.

Minneapolis homes lost the most value over that period, with prices falling 10%.

Other big losers include Phoenix (- 8.4%), Chicago (- 7.6%) and Portland, OR. (- 7.6%)

Prices continue to be hammered by foreclosures with high numbers of repossessed homes flooding the market.

Many repossessed properties are in poor condition and sell at a big discount to conventionally sold homes, driving down overall values.

Falling home prices have a devastating impact on new home construction, according to Pat Newport, a housing market analyst for IHS Global Insight.

“They are a key reason why builders aren’t building new homes, even in the fastest growing states, like Texas,” he said. “Existing homes are selling for so much less, the builders can’t compete.”

Normally, new-home construction is an important contributor to the economic recovery. Not so this time, according to Mike Larson, an analyst with Weiss Research.

“Housing has been an albatross for the economy as opposed to an engine powering it,” he said.

If residential development had come back as it has in the past, the current recovery would be much stronger. There’s be much more robust hiring of construction workers, building materials manufacturers and drivers and deliverymen to bring the products to site.

Newport pointed out that when developers build a new home for $300,000 it adds $300,000 to the economy, as measured by GDP. An existing-home sale just adds 5% or 6% in broker’s commission.

“As a component of the GDP,” said Larson, “housing has been out to lunch.”

Read more at CNN Money.

Foreclosures account for 28% of real estate sales in Q1

Foreclosure sales accounted for 28 percent of U.S. home sales in the first quarter, with those properties selling for nearly 27 percent less, on average, than homes not in the foreclosure process, data aggregator RealtyTrac said in a report released today.

A total of 158,434 U.S. residential properties either owned by banks or in some stage of foreclosure sold to third parties in the first quarter, a decrease of 16 percent from fourth-quarter 2010 and a decrease of nearly 36 percent from first-quarter 2010, RealtyTrac said.

Properties in some stage of foreclosure – default, scheduled for auction or bank-owned (REO) — had an average sales price of $168,321, down 1.9 percent from fourth-quarter 2010 and down 1.5 percent from first-quarter 2010, RealtyTrac said. The 27 percent foreclosure discount for the first quarter was unchanged quarter-to-quarter, and up slightly from a 26 percent discount in first-quarter 2010.

“While foreclosure sales continue to account for an unusually high percentage of all residential home sales, sales volume is well off the peak we saw in the first quarter of 2009, when nearly 350,000 foreclosure properties sold to third parties,” said James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s CEO, in a statement.

“While this is probably helping to keep home prices relatively stable, it is also delaying the housing recovery. At the first quarter foreclosure sales pace, it would take exactly three years to clear the current inventory of 1.9 million properties already on the banks’ books, or in foreclosure.”

A total of 107,143 bank-owned (REO) properties sold to third parties in the first quarter, down nearly 30 percent year-over-year, at an average discount of 35 percent, up from an average discount of 33 percent in first-quarter 2010. REOs comprised nearly 19 percent of all sales last quarter.

Another 51,291 pre-foreclosure properties — homes in default or scheduled for auction — sold to third parties in the first quarter, down 45 percent year-over-year, at an average discount of 9 percent, down from an average discount of 14 percent in first-quarter 2010. Pre-foreclosure sales comprised nearly 9 percent of all sales last quarter.

It took an average of 176 days for an REO to sell after it had been repossessed; pre-foreclosure properties were in the foreclosure process for 228 days on average before selling, RealtyTrac said.

Nevada, California and Arizona had the highest share of foreclosure sales. Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky had the largest foreclosure discounts.

Source: RealtyTrac

Summary of 2Q10 Sales Activity

Sales in June decreased 4.2 percent in California, compared with the same period a year ago. Sales fell below the 500,000-unit benchmark in June after surging in May. Existing, single-family home sales registered a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 492,800 units in June, decreasing both on a month-to-month and on a year-to-year basis.

The decline in sales from the previous month was the largest monthly decrease since March 2009 when sales registered a decline of 15.8 percent. Historically, June sales activity has been about the same as that of May’s when seasonality factors are taken into consideration.
Federal and state tax credits continue to influence the pattern of sales in 2010. The federal home buyer tax credit required a buyer to open escrow by April 30, driving a surge in open escrows in April and a drop off in May.

Sales in June also were expected to be strong, but the decline in sales during the month suggests the strength in May activity might have come at the expense of June.