Twin Cities metro area housing prices fell 10 percent over the last year, posting the worst performance among major metropolitan areas across the United States in the first quarter, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller 1 Home Price Index.
The report confirms “a double-dip in home prices across much of the nation,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices, said in a statement. The National Index, the 20 City Composite and 12 MSAs all hit new lows in data reported through March 2011. Home prices dropped 3.6 percent across a composite of the 20 largest metropolitan areas and fell 5.1 percent nationwide from a year ago.
Housing prices are back to the level of 2002 across the nation, according to the index.
The composite index for Minneapolis/St. Paul was 105.57 in March, compared to prices from January 2000 at an index value of 100. That means prices are up 5.57 percent over the past 11 and one-half years. This compares with of 138.1for the 20-city composite index and 125.41 for the nation as a whole.
The nationwide index fell 4.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011. Twin Cities home prices fell 3.7 percent from February to March compared with a decline of 0.8 percent across the 20-city composite. Washington, D.C., was the only city where home prices increased on a monthly (+1.1 percent) and annual (+4.3 percent) basis. Seattle was up 0.1 percent for the month, but still down 7.5 percent versus March 2010.
Anyone who didn’t see this coming was not paying attention.
After the federal home buyer tax credit program ended last April, the slump was free to resume, and it did. Add the expense to the mounting federal debt, and add thousands of new homeowners to the under-water-with- respect-to-your-mortgage club. The once exclusive club, now boast 28% of mortgage holders in America.
It turns out, renting is the American dream.
The reason it’s a bad policy is that we won’t know the real price of real estate until the policy is withdrawn which will be a big old mess, particularly since personal credit will be the vehicle for the stimulus.
It would appear that the rent is NOT too damn high….