Remember When California and Florida Home Prices Dropped Over 30%?

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Remember When California and Florida Home Prices Dropped Over 30%?

© benedek / iStock via Getty Images

In the period that ended in December 2008, home prices in several markets had dropped over 30% year over year. In Merced, California, the figure was 49.5%, while in nearby Stockton, the drop was 40.19%. The plunge in Riverside, California, was 30.32%; in Naples, Florida, it was 32.87%; and the drop was 32.60% in Las Vegas, Nevada.
[in-text-ad]
What happened? In part, it was because adjustable mortgage rates had reset at very high levels. Another reason was the unemployment rates brought on by the Great Recession. Perhaps most importantly, housing prices had soared to unsupportable levels in 2005 and 2006. Put another way, tens of thousands of homes across America were too expensive for their prices to be sustained.
[nativounit]
Over the next 12 months, there will be another home price reset? Will it be as bad as in 2008? The answer is that, in some areas where home prices have soared, there could be another crash.

Florida Atlantic University keeps a list of the most overvalued markets. This list recently was topped by Boise, Idaho, which was overvalued by 75%. It was followed by Austin, Texas, at 66%; Ogden, Utah, at 63%; and Las Vegas at 60%. The latter was among the cities that had the worst drop in 2008.
[wallst_email_signup]
These overvalued cities have one thing in common. There have been huge influxes in population in the past two years, which shows little sign of ending.

Housing demand has been more robust in the past two years than at any time in the past seven decades. Perhaps, the market was as hot just after World War II.
[recirclink id=1107578]
Two things soon will be the enemies of housing in the United States. The first is rising interest rates, which will affect mortgages. The other is a recession triggered by inflation and trouble in some industries brought on primarily by supply chain challenges.

Housing prices are in for a reset.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618