S&P/Case-Shiller released its November report on housing prices across the nation’s 20 biggest cities and the news wasn’t particularly good. There were some signs of stabilizing (and four cities have even seen price rises over the last year), but, as David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, put it, “there is no clear sign of a sustained, broad-based recovery.” New York appeared to have continued downward momentum, with prices off 1% from October and more than 7% from a year earlier; the 20-city index as a whole was down 5.3% over the year. U.S. News & World Report estimates that overall prices have another 5 to 10% left to fall. “We see a big backlog of distressed properties that could come on the market in the next several quarters,” Celia Chen of Moody’s Economy.com told the publication. The Case-Shiller report comes on the heels of a larger-than-expected drop in existing home sales.
A Look at Case-Shiller, by Metro Area [WSJ]
Home Prices Stabilize Further [U.S. News]
Tough Times for Housing Market Followers [Seeking Alpha]