Ouch! House prices keep falling

Zack Miller — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:04:00 EST

Filed under: Indices, Economic Data, Housing

Interesting post from Bespoke Investment Group this morning segmenting out house price declines in different communities around the U.S.

Needless to say, prices are continuing their downward plunge, and some places have been hit harder than others.

Some takeaways from the article:

Using the S&P/Case-Shiller Median Home Price indices to measure drops from house price peaks until now, Bespoke's 10-city index is down 9.4%;
San Diego has fallen the most at -16.3%, followed by Miami (-15.3%) and Las Vegas (-14%);
Chicago has fallen the least from its peak at -4.1%;
Almost all cities (Charlotte appears to be the exception) are down below 1992 prices

How does an investor play this amazing 15-year reversal?

If investors believe we're beginning to reach a bottom (big assumption), take a look at REIT (Real Estate Investment Trusts) ETFs: iShares Cohen & Steers Realty Majors Index Fund (ICF), iShares Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index Fund (IYR), iShares FTSE NAREIT Real Estate 50 Index (FTY)

Zack Miller is the Managing Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

Ouch! House prices keep falling originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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