A new report shows 90 percent of major U.S. cities saw home prices drop at the end of 2010. The report from the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index found that national home prices fell 4.1 percent during the last three months as compared with 12 months earlier. Even worse, some cities saw drops as high as 9.1 percent.
Large Cities Saw Major Home-Price Declines
The report found that of the 20 large cities it covers, 18 experienced a decline in home prices. While many of the cities with declines had losses that mirrored the national average, Detroit saw the biggest loss, with prices for the year that dropped by a whopping 9.1 percent.
There were only two cities in the report that experienced gains at the end of 2010. Washington was up 4.1 percent and San Diego saw prices increase by 1.7 percent for the year.
S&P spokesperson, Maureen Maitland, said the losses in home prices mirrored the losses in 2009. In her opinion, the increases earlier last year were a tax-incentive fluke. “Last year’s gains came courtesy of the tax incentives and the market is not holding up on its own,” she told CNN Money.
Housing Market Having a Difficult Recovery
The economy seems to be making a slow yet steady recovery. With many big companies seeing huge profits and the unemployment rate dropping a bit, improvements look to be on the horizon.
The housing market, on the other hand, is continuing to struggle. Foreclosures have reached the highest level seen since data was collected, home sales are reaching lows not seen in 13 years, and now home prices, which had recovered a bit, are sinking again.
According to the report, home prices dropped 1.9 percent compared to three months earlier and they are expected to continue this drop as long as foreclosures prevail and home sales stall.
It appears that at this time, taking out a mortgage loan is just something consumers are not interest in trying–and no one can blame them. But unfortunately, the fear of purchasing a home only proves that experts may have been correct in their assumption that the market may never recover.
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