More real estate experts are forecasting larger-than-expected U.S. home price declines, as foreclosures make their way through the market. Citing Moody’s data, Bloomberg News reported that sales of repossessed properties will rise 25 percent this year from the 1 million such sales recorded in 2011.

Because repossessed properties sell at a 35 percent discount from lenders’ valuation of the homes — and a 60 percent discount for distressed homes on the market for two years, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland — home prices are sure to fall with the continued foreclosure activity. [more]

Zillow.com 2012 Home Values (click image to enlarge)

Nationwide home values will decline 3.7 percent in 2012, according to a forward looking study released today by Zillow.com, which represents an improvement over the 4.7 percent decline last year. Most markets will see shrinking home values this year, Zillow said.

Prices have now fallen 24.2 percent since the peak, and while the report expected record-low interest rates to fuel more sales activity this year, much of that will be concentrated in the cheap supply created by the foreclosure crisis. [more]

U.S. housing prices will continue to fall in 2012, but the rate of decline is slowing, according to two separate Zillow.com reports cited by Bloomberg News.

Thanks in part to foreclosures, housing prices will fall further until at least 2013, according to a survey of 109 economists, despite record low mortgage rates. Yesterday’s existing home sales report supported that belief, showing prices declined 3.5 percent in November. When values do rise, the same economists said they probably wouldn’t match the prices recorded prior to the housing collapse.

Prices are already down 31 percent from their July 2006 peak, the most recent Case-Shiller Index shows, and they will drop another 7 percent, according to Scott Simon, head of mortgage and asset-backed securities at California-based Pacific Investment Management. [more]

Home prices in the U.S. decreased by 1.3 percent in October, in their third straight month-over-month decline, according to data released today by real estate analytics provider CoreLogic.

Prices of existing single-family homes, also declined, by 3.9 percent year-over-year, an increase from September’s year-over-year decline of 3.8 percent.. The year-over-year decline was 0.5 percent when excluding distressed sales.

However, in the New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.J. area, home prices increased by 2.6 percent year-over-year in October, including distressed sales. The decline was a greater 3.6 percent when distressed sales were excluded. – Guelda Voien
[more]

Source: CoreLogic (click to enlarge)

National housing prices declined on both a month-over-month and year-over-year basis in September, according to the Housing Market Index released yesterday by CoreLogic, but the news was far better for the New York City area.

The New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.J. market experienced a 2.2 percent increase in single-family housing prices between September 2010 and September 2011, taking into account distressed sales. Excluding those sales, the year-over-year increase was 2.9 percent. – Adam Fusfeld [more]

Considering the sluggish sales activity, rock bottom pricing and glut of foreclosures, the national housing market is suffering from a new, surprising problem. According to the Wall Street Journal there is actually a lack of inventory, as the number of home sales has declined 20 percent in the last 12 months to 2.19 million homes, according to Realtor.com.

Though declining inventory is usually seen as a sign of a healthy market, the current shortage has arisen for two reasons: banks have been slow to process foreclosed properties that would otherwise be on the market and sellers reluctant to accept discounted prices are pulling their homes off the market. [more]

Click to enlarge

U.S. home prices are incrementally increasing, but that appears to be a seasonal shift as prices remain far below levels of a year ago. According to the June Home Price Index released today by analytics firm CoreLogic, nationwide single-family housing prices gained 0.7 percent in June compared to May, marking the third consecutive month-over-month gain in prices. But prices are still down 6.8 percent from June 2010, an even worse decline than the 6.7 percent experienced from May 2010 to May 2011. That suggests the increase is almost entirely due to seasonality. – Adam Fusfeld [more]

New York led a second consecutive month of U.S. housing price gains, according to the May Housing Price Index released today by CoreLogic. Nationwide home prices rose slightly in May compared to April, but remained far below their levels a year ago. Including distressed sales, prices rose 0.8 percent compared to April, but were stuck at 7.4 percent less than May 2010. However, excluding distressed sales, the year-over-year decline was just 0.4 percent.
“Two consecutive months of month-over-month growth and continued relative strength in the non-distressed market segment are positive seasonal signs in the housing market,” said Mark Fleming, CoreLogic’s chief economist. – Adam Fusfeld [more]

No region was spared from the U.S. housing collapse, but some had it worse than others. The Wall Street Journal and Zillow mapped out housing price declines from 2006 to the present by different zip codes in six major markets, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago and New York, and found that housing prices slumped worse in poorer center-city neighborhoods and distant suburbs, while upscale areas retained much of their value. Zillow said because subprime loans were handed out more frequently in lower-priced neighborhoods, and because those areas developed excess supply during the boom, they were hit harder by the recession. The price maps show that New York City retained much of its value, and zip code 10128, which covers part of the Upper East Side, actually retained its 2006 value. See the complete breakdown in New York by clicking here. [more]

First, the good news: foreclosure notices have declined for three straight quarters in New York City, and in Queens, where foreclosures have been most prevalent, the number declined 25.8 percent in the first quarter of 2011 compared to the same period a year ago, according to a New York University Furman Center report released today. Now, the bad news: home prices declined between the last quarter of 2010 and the first of 2011 in every borough except Queens, where housing prices were flat but remain about one-third lower than peak values in the fourth quarter of 2006 and mid-2007. TRD [more]