Housing Prices Decline 1.1% From September to October

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has just released a report estimating housing prices have declined 1.1% from September to October on a seasonally adjusted bases.

The year over year decline for the entire United States is 7.5%. 

The FHFA index isn’t representative of the entire housing market because the index is calculated by only using the purchase price of houses backed by mortgages sold to or guaranteed by Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae.

Here is a year of year chart of housing price declines by region of the U.S.

Chart source: fhfa.gov

The National Association of Realtors has also reported a decline in home sales and home prices.

“Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – fell 8.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate¹ of 4.49 million units in November from a downwardly revised level of 4.91 million in October, and are 10.6 percent below the 5.02 million-unit pace in November 2007″

“The national median existing-home price³ for all housing types was $181,300 in November, down 13.2 percent from November 2007 when the median was $208,800. There remains a significant downward distortion in the current price from a large number of distress sales at discounted prices; the median is where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less.”