I’m catching up on my reading, and I just looked at the recent Census Bureau numbers on new residential sales. Can this be right? The median new home price in December, 2008 was $223,200. The median price in January was $201,100. That’s a drop of 10%!
An update: No surprise, but Dean Baker at Beat the Press already remarked on this. He says:
This is a truly incredible rate of price decline. While the data is erratic, even if the decline was only half this large, a 5 percent single month decline in house prices is enormous. This suggests that house prices are in a free fall….. One should be always careful about making too much of a single month’s data, but it is worth noting that this is the most current series on housing prices…..
Stories You Might Like
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
