It's official: Housing prices hit new low
The downturn in home prices has now blown past the previous lows set during the Great Recession, according to the latest Case-Shiller numbers.
Home prices in 18 of the nation's top 20 metro markets, including Boston, saw prices fall again in March. It marks the eighth straight month of declining home prices since the end of the home buyer tax credit pushed the residential market off the cliff.
March saw a 3.6 percent, year-over-year drop in home prices, following on the heels of a 3.3 percent drop in February.
Nationally, home prices have now slipped below April 2009 levels, the last low point of the current, and now years-long, housing downturn, according to Case-Shiller.
Ouch!
Boston area home prices fell at a somewhat more moderate pace - 2.7 percent. That's compared to the 7.6 percent hit Chicago took and the 10 percent plunge in real estate values in Minneapolis.
So are we different? Maybe, as all markets are to some extent, yet not as much as some of us around here might like to think.
And if declining home prices manage to push the economy back into recession, this could all just be a warm-up act.
