Falling home prices

I'm late on this one, but I've been watching the real estate market for a couple of years as well. I'm in New England, and our housing prices skyrocketed through about 2005, then stalled. The house where I live is a good example - it's a three family home in a working class neighborhood. In 2001, it sold for $150,000. In 2005, it sold for $350,000. Six months ago, it was reevaluated at $156,000. Someone in the middle there made a nice killing, and even though the last owner of the house lost $200,000, the fact of the mater is that the house has actually gained in value since 2001. About ten months ago, I started seeing prices stall and hang there. Houses had been selling within a couple of weeks of going on the market, but suddenly they were sitting there for months and months. About April, we saw a huge slide... asking prices were re-adjusting, and houses that had been on the market for a while were getting their prices slashed at the rate of $10-15k a week. If I remember right, it was during that time period that the Boston average home price dropped by over 20% over the course of two months. We've got an ungodly foreclosure rate in some neighborhoods in the city - ours is one of them. I can look out my window and four of the ten houses I see from my front porch have foreclosure sale signs on them. My own house is in pre-foreclosure - the owner has walked away, but the mortgage company hasn't started proceedings yet. They're still working with the owner's realtor to find a buyer. At the same time, I'm seeing a slowdown of the falling prices, and seeing different support systems kick in. Some of it is government sponsored, some of it is industry sponsored and some of it is community-sponsored. I agree with you that the housing market is a huge part of the foundation of the economy, and I think that cities around the country are starting to recognize that they have to step in and keep houses from going into foreclosure and standing vacant. Wow - I guess that wasn't exactly brief, was it? Obviously, I think way too much about this!

Here in the west coast of Canada too. And forecasters see it happening across the nation. I've been expecting/hoping it to occur for a number of years now, because it's just impossible for prices to stay inflated like that. Regular houses/condos shouldn't be in the half-a-million to millions of dollars in range. And salaries aren't really keeping up with real estate prices too. This "bubble" that's been going on for some time is simply crazy, if you ask me. Don't have stats on foreclosures, but have heard a few.

not only in your area has problems.also in germany has suffering so much.we did try to sell our house but no chance at all because people has no money and so mayn are jobless.the ex-house of my husband was five hundred thausand euro worth of the house but it was sold two hundred fifty thausand only.

I live in Southern California (specifically the L.A. area). Generally, home prices have gone down significantly here, anywhere from 15% to 30% depending on the area. Again, depending on area there is a glut of foreclosures. Foreclosures and prices in that area haven't gone down as much as they have in the Riverside/San Bernardino area. We had our house on the market for almost 9 months last year and decided to take it off the market when the last offer was $150,000 below our asking price. We just couldn't compete with all of the foreclosures out there. Agents in the area tell us that they don't expect a turn around until the last quarter of 2009.

i live in england and the house prices are falling here aswel. but house priced over £250 want you to have 60k+ encome to be mortgaged i heard (not sure if its true)!