Average home prices are down 8% from a year ago. Homes are down 3% over the last quarter, and are falling at about 1% every month. The percentage of homeowners in negative equity position, a home worth less than its mortgage, has shot up to 28%, a new crisis high. Some housing industry observers now predict that prices will fall about 8% this year. They expect the market will not bottom before 2012.
Those tax breaks for homebuyers turned out to be an exercise in futility. The government spent an estimated $22 billion between 2008 and 2010 on tax breaks to shore up the housing market. Instead it turned out to be a brief suckers' rally that ended last summer. It was a giant waste of money.
Housing prices really are relative though. Some places in the country have fallen so far that they offer some great deals.
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