Housing prices continue to fall

It’s good news if you’re buying a house, terrible if you’re selling one: Housing prices across the country continued their fall in October.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index released on Dec. 26 showed that housing prices across the country dropped 6.7 percent in October. That drop is a signficant one: It ranks as the largest since April of 1991. This is the 10th consecutive month in which housing prices have declined.

The index’s results are more proof that buyers today can find great housing bargains. It’s obvious that sellers are lowering their prices. This is no surpirse. Many of them have been trying to sell their homes for a year or longer. Shrewd buyers should not only be able to get lower prices out of these sellers, they should also be able to nab concessions on closing dates, home repairs and other perks.

In the index’s survey of 20 metropolitan areas, Miami showed the largest price declines in the country, with housing values falling 12.4 percent in October compared with the same month one year earlier. Also in Florida, Tampa saw its housing values plummet 11.8 percent.

The only cities surveyed in the index that posted year-over-year housing gains were Charlotte, N.C.; Portland, Ore.; and Seattle. Charlotte, in fact, posted the largest gain in the entire survey, with its housing prices rising 4.3 percent this October compared to last.