Home sales fall in half of U.S. cities
BOSTON - Home prices fell in almost half of the nation's cities in the fourth quarter as the number of foreclosures rose to a record, hurting the confidence of buyers.
The median price of a single-family home dropped from a year earlier in 71 of 152 metropolitan areas tracked by the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors, the group said in a report Thursday. Prices in Cumberland, Md., tumbled 20 percent, the biggest decline. The median price nationwide rose 0.2 percent to $170,600, as cities including New York and Boston posted gains.
Big cities where employment is growing saw gains, according to the NAR. The median price of a single-family home in the New York area climbed 4 percent. The Washington region had an 8.1 percent increase, and prices in the Boston area rose 4.2 percent, the report said.
On Long Island, the fourth-quarter median closing price of $387,600 was a 1.4 percent increase over the year-ago period, the trade group said. NAR gets its data from local sources such as the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island and various real estate data providers.
For example, fourth-quarter numbers from Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate showed median closing prices dropped 1.4 percent from a year ago for most of Long Island but rose 4 percent in the high-end Hamptons-North Fork market.
The number of homes in foreclosure in December rose to a record 2.2 million, according to Florida-based Lender Processing Services Inc. Including foreclosures and late payments, there were 6.87 million non-current mortgages, the company said.
Home sales gained 15.4 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months, at a seasonally adjusted pace, led by a doubling in Idaho, NAR said in a separate report yesterday. Sales jumped 55 percent in Vermont and 34 percent in Minnesota.
The state with the worst sales record was Virginia, with a 5.4 percent drop, according to the report. Sales in the nation's capital were unchanged from the prior quarter.
With Ellen Yan
