There have been mixed feelings about home prices in USA in the past few years. A few years back I was part of a team trying to design a model for a mortgage bank to increase the percentage of acceptance of a HELOC as soon as a customer is qualified for a mortgage loan. However the VP of the company was expecting a burst and was worried about a scenario where the bank would be saddled by a set of high risk HELOC portfolio. He allowed the roll out of the model on a small acquisition base and wanted to wait till the housing effect cooled down. In the hindsight, it appears as a correct move.

Via NYT today :

“Nationally, the median price of single-family homes fell 2.7 percent, to $219,300.”

“You have two kinds of weakness here: there is the traditional economic-driven weakness in parts of the Midwest, and there is the bubble-bursting weakness,” said Jan Hatzius, chief United States economist at Goldman Sachs. “That’s what is bringing
down the national home price appreciation rate.”