U.S. home prices declined in the 12 months through July as concerns that the economy may enter another recession sapped the confidence of would-be buyers.The StarNews says that the bad could be mixed with the good because although prices are down, there are more houses being sold. Isn't it possible that more people simply couldn't afford their houses anymore?
Prices dropped 3.3 percent, the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said in a report today.
StarNews:
August's average sale price was down about $1,000 from a year earlier, but the median price dropped to $178,900 from $190,000.Prices are down 5.8%. That's 77% higher than the national average.
[...]There are about 10 months worth of houses on the market now. That means that at the current pace, it would take 10 months to sell all the houses for sale.
That needs to fall to five to seven months' for prices to stabilize, Garner said.
[...]More than a third of all sales in the first half of 2011 were foreclosures or short sales, Garner said.
[...]The number of days that it takes to sell a home are still edging up, he said. That figure was 155 days in the latest WRAR data.
Our short sales and foreclosures are also massively above the national average. According to this article, nationally, short sales and foreclosures made up 22% of all sales in August and 18% in July. Ours is over 50% higher than that.
It seemed like new housing starts was an essential part of the picture that wasn't being given, so I Googled it.
Now, you can read this chart as well as I can, but I did some quick averaging and it seems like new housing starts in Wilmington are down about 16% from last year. Even if I'm off bit a bit, it's clearly down by quite a lot.
Folks, our tax burden and our zoning code is killing new housing. We need to do something about it. Our "Smart Growth" advocates will do nothing but produce bubbles that only lead to even greater declines, just like this.
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