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Decline persists in prices of homes in New York metro area
(Record, The (Hackensack, NJ) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jan. 28--Home prices in the New York metropolitan area, which includes North Jersey, declined 8.6 percent from November 2007 to November 2008, the Standard and Poor's Case-Shiller index reported Tuesday.
The regional market is in considerably less distress than the national real estate market, which posted a record decline of 18.2 percent. Values plummeted more than 30 percent in several of the nation's most troubled markets, including Las Vegas, San Francisco and Phoenix.
"The free fall in residential real estate continued through November 2008," said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard and Poor's.
Prices in the national indices have declined every month for 28 consecutive months and are now at about the levels of early 2004 -- about 25 percent below the peaks reached in 2006, according to Case-Shiller. In the New York area, prices have returned to the levels of January 2005.
In Bergen County, single-family home prices declined 7.8 percent from November 2007 to November 2008, to a median of $470,000, according to the New Jersey Multiple Listing Service. Sales activity was down by about 16 percent. Similar figures were not available for Passaic County, which largely uses a different multiple listing service.
Cathy Denis of Century 21 Mainstream in New Milford said many buyers have backed out of transactions because they are nervous about the market and the economy.
"In their heads they know it's probably a good time to buy, but they still question whether prices will drop even more," she said. "I think the fear factor is definitely there -- 'Will I have a job?'"
Nelson Chen of the Chen Agency in Fort Lee said prices in the area have dropped around 20 percent from the market's peak a few years ago. And he said average prices may have further to fall, because some sellers still insist on high asking prices.
"It will take the whole year for many of those people to get with the program," Chen said. "But sellers who have gotten the memo [on pricing] -- there are multiple buyers for them. We're making deals for them."
Bill Gilsenan, a Ridgewood real estate broker who is director of the RealSource Association of Realtors, said he hopes that low mortgage rates -- now below 6 percent -- will bring out buyers this spring, traditionally the busiest season for home sales. Realtors have reported a recent increase in buyer traffic, he said, adding, "Interest rates are what's driving it."
Nationally, rising numbers of foreclosures continue to drag prices down, said Patrick Newport, an economist with IHS Global Insight. And efforts to help homeowners facing foreclosure have had limited success, he added. He cited recent government reports finding that even after mortgages were modified to make them easier to pay, about 60 percent were delinquent again after eight months.
The Case-Shiller indices are a closely followed measure of home values because they are constructed to track the price history of typical single-family homes.
To see more of The Record, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.NorthJersey.com.
Copyright (c) 2009, The Record, Hackensack, N.J.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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