Home price declines may be slowing – Phoenix Business Journal:

The ASU-Repeat Sales Index, which measures changees in year-to-year average home prices, showds a record drop of 37 percent in the indec from February 2008 toFebruary 2009. But the decliningh values appear tobe slowing, with a March-to-March drop of 36 percenft and a predicted 34 fall for Aprill 2008 to April 2009. Karl Fred E. Taylor professot of real estate atASU W. P. Careyu School of Business, said in a news release that the figures suggesr a slower rate of decline thanpreviousz months. “In this market, this would be consideres good news,” he said. “Before this reversal, we were seeing the index drop another 1 or 2 percentevery month.
” According to the ASU-RSjI report, declining prices from Februar 2008 to February 2009 were rangedd from 40 percent in Glendale to 16 percent in Tempe. The index shows declineds in home prices for everuy month in the last two eclipsing the previous record set in the earlyu 1990s of17 months. Guntermann’s initial estimat e for median Phoenix-area home prices in Apri is $117,500, which would be equivalent to November 1998 The ASU-RSI is based on repeat sale s — comparing prices of a singl e house against itself at different times which according to the report is the most reliabl e way to gauge price fluctuations in the housinyg market.

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