Fred Harteis News Articles - Home prices: Record drop in October

Fred Harteis News Articles - The price of existing homes sold in October fell for the third straight month and posted the biggest drop on record, an industry group said Tuesday, adding it expects weakness in pricing to drag on into next year.

The National Association of Realtors said that the median price of a home sold in October was $221,000, the same as in September, but down 3.5 percent from October 2005.

The previous record drop was a 2.1 percent decline in November 1990, the real estate group said.

While month-to-month declines in home prices are not uncommon, year-to-year drops had been rare before the recent housing slump.

August was the first month in 11 years to see such a decline. September was originally reported as a record 2.2 percent drop, but a revision in those numbers put that price decline at 1.8 percent.

The weakness in home prices isn't likely to go away soon, according to Realtors spokesman Walter Molony. "We do expect we'll see prices stay below year-ago levels through the end of this year, and pick up in the first quarter of 2007," he said.

Pat Vredevoogd Combs, a Grand Rapids, Mich., Realtor and president of the trade group, said in a statement the the market has become a good one for buyers.

Photos: Million-dollar homes
"With the exception of parts of the West, sellers are cutting their price enough to encourage sales," she said. A sharp drop in sales and prices in once hot markets such as Washington D.C. and parts of Florida, coupled with improved sales in some lower-price markets in Texas, have driven median prices down 7 percent in the South.

But all four regions of the country posted a year-over-year decline in median prices.

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Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.