“Home prices: Worst drop since ’70”

CNNMoney reports on the latest new home sales data (11/29/07):

The sales pace for October was well short of economists’ forecasts. The Census Bureau’s latest report also sharply cut back on its earlier estimates for sales in August and September, when a meltdown in mortgage markets kept many potential buyers from getting the financing they needed.

Also depressing sales and prices was a record 191,000 completed new homes on the market that have not yet been sold.

The report showed that the median price of a new home sold in October plunged 13 percent from year-earlier levels to $217,800. It was the most severe year-over-year drop since September 1970…

The annual pace of sales of new homes came in at 728,000 for the month..

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had been expecting a sales rate of 750,000 in October. The current sales pace is only a little more than half the demand seen as recently as two years ago…

See also:

U.S. National Home Price Index Posts a Record Annual Decline in the 3rd Quarter of 2007
…the year-over-year decline posted its second consecutive record low at -4.5%. Consistent with prior 2007 reports, there is no real positive news in today’s data…

Gazette: “Assessed property values flatten out in Valley”
‘The market is generally slow,’ said David Burgess, principal assessor in Amherst. ‘There’s very little construction at the moment, and people are not paying as much as they were before. It’s cyclical. There’s an awful lot of property on the market.’