Two home price reports — both with big flaws
Sunday, March 11th, 2007With all the conflicting reports on housing prices and the direction of the market, you might ask: What’s really going on out there?If, as the National Association of Realtors reported last month, the median price of an existing home nationwide fell by 3.1 percent in 2006, does that mean that your house lost value as well?
Or do you focus instead on the more upbeat numbers released March 1 by the federal agency that tracks value shifts in the country’s largest database of existing dwellings? The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight reported that home values rose by an average 5.9 percent last year, although the rate slowed to just 1.1 percent in the final three months of 2006. It also found some quarterly deflation in prices in California, parts of Florida, the Midwest and New England.
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