Home prices still dropping in Lee County

Home prices across the U.S. declined 11.2 percent in September compared to a year ago, and early preview data for October indicates an anticipated decline of 10.5 percent, according to First American CoreLogic and its Loan- Performance Home Price Index. The recently released Index indicates that home prices across the U.S. have now maintained a steady annualized depreciation rate of between 10 and 11 percent for eight consecutive months.

In Lee County, the index shows that home prices decreased by 23.51 percent in September compared to last year. The LoanPerformance HPI is a repeatsales index that tracks increases and decreases in sales prices for the same homes over time, which provides a more accurate "constant-quality" view of pricing trends than basing analysis on all home sales.

According to the Index, 34 states experienced annual price declines as of September, but the geographic breadth of the declines seems to have stabilized. California remains the clear leader as prices have declined 29.9 percent annually followed by Nevada (25 percent), Arizona (21.1 percent), Florida (17.5 percent), Hawaii (14.3 percent), and Rhode Island (13.3 percent). West Virginia (5 percent) and Texas (2.1 percent) continue to exhibit the leading price increases, but even those increases have been generally decelerating the last few months.

"Our early estimate of October sales transaction volumes has declined substantially, which is not a surprise given recently released economic data and events in the credit and financial markets," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic. The stabilization of house price trends in volatile markets is encouraging, but the impact of the economic instability remains to be seen over the coming months."