NAR forecast: Resale home prices will fall 1.4% this year

The median price of resale homes is expected to drop another 1.4 percent this year, equaling last year's decline, and an index tracking pending sales of resale homes hit a record low in February, the National Association of Realtors reported today. The median price of new homes is expected to drop 3.6 percent this year. Sales of resale single-family homes and condos and co-operatives are expected to drop 4.7 percent this year, to an annual total of 5.39 million sales, according to the Realtor group's latest housing market forecast. That follows a 12.8 percent decline in 2007 and an 8.5 percent decline in 2006. New-home sales are expected to drop 25.7 percent this year, following a 26.3 percent decline last year and an 18.1 percent decline in 2006. Single-family housing starts are expected to tumble 34.2 percent this year compared to 2007, topping a 28.6 percent decline last year and a 14.6 percent decline in 2006. NAR is predicting that a turnaround in the housing market wil...