What’s That Hissing Sound?

It could be a housing bubble coming to an end. Today we learn that home price appreciation had its sharpest pullback EVER. (Well, the records only go back to 1975, but still….)

New evidence of a housing market slowdown emerged Tuesday – growth in the price of a single family home was just 1.17 percent in the second quarter, a decline of more than one percentage point from the prior quarter when prices grew 2.20 percent.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which released the report, said it was the slowest quarterly increase since the fourth quarter of 1999 and was the sharpest quarter-to-quarter pullback since OFHEO began the index in 1975.
The year-over-year price gain was 10.06 percent.
OFHEO’s numbers are generally regarded as the most accurate gauge of housing prices. Instead of measuring the average sale prices of homes, it compares repeat sale prices of the same single family homes.

Here’s how home prices are doing in 151 markets.
Danville, IL is listed as the lowest-priced housing market. Sooo…I’d thought I’d help out the good folks there. Here’s a listing for a five-bedroom waterfront crib in Danville. That’s it in the picture above. It can all be yours for $599,000.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on September 5th, 2006 at 12:58 pm

The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.