Done Deals: Housing Market Suffers Biggest Drop Since World War Two

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Housing Market Suffers Biggest Drop Since World War Two

NOVATO, CA Oct. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. new home prices are now down 17%, new home sales have been reduced by 57% and new property listings are down by 27% since the real estate market's historic peak set in March of 2007.

This marks the worst residential real estate bear market in price decline and duration since 1945.

While this is humbling news to millions of homeowners nationwide, not everyone is feeling the pain to the same degree.As can be seen in the table below, the greatest declines in home prices have been felt in the Western states.

The Northeast is actually seeing price increases since earlier this year, but on significantly reduced levels of sales and listings.

In comparing today's housing market to past real estate bear markets, it is interesting to note that while price declines are only slightly worse than the 1969/70 bear market, sales and listings have "dried up" much worse today than 38 years ago.

Fortunately, while the current condition is bad it is not record setting.

Winans International Real Estate Index (New U.S. Homes) Percentage Change Since March 31, 2007:

The worst decline of U.S. new home prices in the last 150-years was the -68% decline from 1929 to 1932."When will this bear market end? Probably not for a while.

Past real estate bear markets ended when the average time it took to sell a new house dropped to 3 1/2 months.

Currently, it is taking over 9 months!" says Ken Winans, (top right photo) author of "Investment Atlas". The Winans International Real Estate Index (WIREI) measures U.S. new home prices from 1830 to present day.

More information on the Winans International Real Estate Index can be found at http://www.winansintl.com/ and http://www.investmentatlas.com/