WATCH OUT! Home Prices Now In Freefall!
Las Vegas and Miami continue to share the dubious distinction of being the weakest markets over the past 12 months returning -22.8% and -21.7%, respectively. These two markets witnessed some of the fastest growth in the 2004/2005 periods, with annual growth rates peaking above +50% and +30%, respectively. For the month of February, markets in the West were the biggest decliners. San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles were the worst performers. Each had a negative return in excess of 4%.
The cost of a typical Bay Area home plunged 17.2 percent year-over-year in February, compared with 13.2 percent in January and 10.8 in December, according to an index of real estate values published by New York credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s. “Prices have a lot of room to fall,” said Patrick Newport, an economist with Waltham, Mass., research firm Global Insight Inc. “We could see some really big drops.”
There is now much opportunity in the market in both commercial and investment properties here in Napa county.
