27 Depressing Facts About The Housing Crash

In February, U.S. housing starts experienced their largest decline in 27 years. These depressing facts may actually be good news for some buyers!

1. The number of new building permits fell to a new all-time record low in February. In fact, new building permits were 20 percent lower during February 2011 than they were in February 2010.

2. As of the end of 2010, 23.1 percent of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage owed more on their homes than their homes were worth.

3. At least 8 million Americans are at least one month behind on their mortgage payment.

4. It is estimated that there are about 5 million homeowners in the United States that are at least two months behind on their mortgages.

5. 18 percent of all the homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That number is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.

6. Celia Chen of Moody’s Analytics projects that home prices in Florida are going to fall another 11 percent.

7. In the state of Arizona, approximately 16 percent of all homes are now sitting vacant.

8. In total, approximately 11 percent of all homes in the United States are currently standing empty.

9. In Dayton, Ohio today 18.9 percent of all homes are now standing empty. 21.5 percent of all homes in New Orleans, Louisiana are currently standing vacant.

10. Home prices in the United States declined by 5.7 percent between January 2010 and January 2011, according to CoreLogic.

11. New home sales in the United States in January were a shocking 11.2% lower than they were in December.

12. New home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.

13. An all-time record of 2.87 million U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in 2010.

14. The number of homes that were actually repossessed reached the 1 million mark for the first time ever during 2010.

15. 72 percent of the major metropolitan areas in the United States had more foreclosures in 2010 than they did in 2009.

16. In 1996, 89 percent of Americans believed that it was better to own a home than to rent one. Today that number has fallen to 63 percent.

17. In 2010 sales of previously existing homes in the United States were at their lowest level in 13 years.

18. 26 percent of all the homes sold in the United States last year were foreclosures or short sales.

19. Distressed property sales accounted for nearly 60 percent of previously owned home sales in California last.

20. The median sale price of a home in California has declined on a year-over-year basis for five months in a row.

21. Since the real estate peak, U.S. home values have fallen by a staggering 6.3 trillion dollars.

22. Deutsche Bank is projecting that 48 percent of all U.S. mortgages could have negative equity by the end of 2011.

23. Two years ago, the average U.S. homeowner that was being foreclosed upon had not made a mortgage payment in 11 months. Today, the average U.S. homeowner that is being foreclosed upon has not made a mortgage payment in 17 months.

24. Right now there are now approximately 15,000 vacant buildings in the city of Chicago.

25. According to Zillow, U.S. home prices have already fallen further during this economic downturn (26 percent) than they did during the Great Depression (25.9 percent).

26. In September 2008, 33 percent of Americans knew someone who had been foreclosed upon or who was facing the threat of foreclosure. Today that number has risen to 48 percent.

27. Some markets can only get better. Detroit Will Pay You To Take One Of Over 100 Abandoned Houses.

Source – http://www.businessinsider.com/

Watch our videos on the StyleWise iTunes podcast.

Subscribe now to the StyleWise Fashion Watch. Get a whole lot more fashion news delivered to your mailbox everyday.

Follow on Twitter!  Facetime on Facebook!  Friends on MySpace!

[ad name=”234×60 banner”]