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More bad housing news

Janet Babin Oct 4, 2006
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More bad housing news

Janet Babin Oct 4, 2006
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TEXT OF STORY

SCOTT JAGOW: We got some numbers this week that showed the slowdown in the housing market might be leveling off, but a report out this morning predicts we ain’t seen nothing yet. Janet Babin has more.


JANET BABIN: The Moody’s Economy.com report projects that median prices for existing homes will fall next year by an average of more than 3.5 percent.

That would be the first such decline in home prices since the Great Depression.

The report also predicts that the losses will be broad-based, affecting more than 100 metro areas.

But Moody’s economist Mark Zandi says housing markets that enjoyed the biggest boom will also likely suffer the deepest decline.

MARK ZANDY: “There will be 20 or so markets across the country where we will see what I would call a crash in prices, meaning double-digit decline in pricing, places like Southwest Florida, around Washington, DC, parts of the central valley of California.”

And boom areas of Arizona and Nevada.

Zandi says houses priced at the highest and lowest ends of the range will be hardest hit by the declines, as will the condo and vacation home sectors.

I’m Janet Babin for Marketplace.

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