In Cape and across much of the country home prices continue to fall
National housing prices fell 12.2 percent in February from a year ago and have declined for 24 consecutive months, according to newly released data from real estate data source First American CoreLogic and its Home Price Index. Over the past three months there has been a small but noticeable acceleration in home price decline, reversing what appeared to be a stabilizing trend in the fall of 2008.
In Cape Coral-Fort Myers, home prices have decreased 26.66 percent in February compared to a year ago. In January 2009, Cape Coral-Fort Myers showed a decrease of 27.23 percent compared to one year prior.
The depth and breadth of price declines continued to worsen in February. More than 700 Core Based Statistical Areas experienced home price depreciation, up from 402 CBSAs experiencing depreciation just six months ago. Over 100 CBSAs were experiencing double digit declines, compared to 83 six months ago.
Nevada (-26.7 percent) was the top ranked state for price depreciation, followed very closely by California (-26.5 percent), Arizona (-21.1 percent), Florida (-19.7 percent) and Rhode Island (-19.5 percent). However high depreciation states is that rate of price declines has been decelerating the last few months.
Although prices declines are beginning to stabilize for the very high depreciation markets, the price trends among a next tier of states that are experiencing double digit declines is worsening. These states include Washington, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, Massachusetts and Virginia. Of these six states, Washington and Oregon stand out as having experienced the largest acceleration in price declines during the last year.