Plummeting Prices Deepen Crisis in U.S. Housing Market

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/plummeting_prices_deepen_crisis_in_us_housing_market_20110530/

Depending on the source, certain sectors of the American economy are showing signs of life, but the housing market sure isn’t one of them, especially considering the news expected to surface on Tuesday that prices have dipped under what was previously believed to be the low point since this recession kicked in three years ago. —KA

The New York Times:

Even as the economy began to fitfully recover in the last year, the percentage of homeowners dropped sharply, to 66.4 percent, from a peak of 69.2 percent in 2004. The ownership rate is now back to the level of 1998, and some housing experts say it could decline to the level of the 1980s or even earlier.

Disenchantment with real estate is bound to swell further on Tuesday when the most widely watched housing index is all but guaranteed to show that prices of existing homes sank in March below the lows reached two years ago — until now the bottom of the housing crash. In February, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of 20 large cities slumped for the seventh month in a row.

More at the link --