Greater Boston wins skimpy price cut award
As I sip my morning coffee, I am looking over a list of the nation's top 20 metro markets sent over by Trulia.
It was set up to mirror the cities in the much watched Case-Shiller index, the latest installment of which is due out later this morning.
And the Boston area leaps out for having the smallest average price cut on a list of markets that stretches from San Diego to Dallas to New York.
When Miami area homeowners decide to lower their asking price, they knock it down by a meaty 11 percent.
In Atlanta and Tampa, it is 9 percent, and in 11 other markets the average cut weighs in at a still substantial 7 to 8 percent.
But in Greater Boston? Our home sellers can muster up only a relatively measly 5 percent discount.
This bit of trivia comes with predictions already out as to what the latest Case-Shiller numbers will show about the state of the nation's battered housing market.
Overall, a 4.4 percent decline across the top 20 metro markets is expected, according to a survey of economists by Bloomberg News.
And my bet is Boston will be on the low end of the price decline spectrum, as has consistently been the case since the housing downturn kicked into gear more than five years ago.
Well you can blame it on all those skimpy price cuts - it's certainly yet another sign of how sticky Boston area home prices have been on the way down.
We'll just have to see what the numbers say. Oh, the anticipation!
