Housing values tumble in the Midwest
I live in the Midwest. I work here, too, and have long covered the ups and downs of the region’s economy.
It’s disheartening, then, to see just how poorly the housing market is performing in the Midwest. For years, real estate agents in this part of the country told me that the Midwest is too stable, too predictable for a housing crash. The Midwest doesn’t see the high highs or the low lows that other parts of the country have when it comes to housing values.
Well, it turns out that those agents were wrong: The Midwest is far from protected from the housing slump.
An Associated Press story last week proved this sad truth. According to the story, home sales in the Midwest dropped 23 percent in November. That’s worse than the national as a whole performed; Home sales in the nation dropped 17 percent in the month.
At the same time, the median sales price of homes in the Midwest dropped 11 percent to $142,400. That was actually better than the rest of the nation, where the median sales price of homes dropped 13 percent to $181,300.
Those Midwest cities that saw the biggest drops in median sales prices were Detroit, Cleveland and Minneapolis, according to the Associated Press. Des Moines in Iowa was the one city that the Associated Press said did not follow this trend. Prices in Des Moines rose 1.4 percent to a median of $152,000. Unfortunately, the news wasn’t all good here: Homes ales fell 34.5 percent in November, according to the Associated Press.
Like I said, I’ve long called the Midwest home. I’ve appreciated its steady nature. What some may call “boring,” I call “prudent.” Unfortunately, much of the area is suffering from job layoffs, declining industries and, now, falling housing prices.
This shouldn’t be much of a surprise. The Midwest is not an island; It suffers from the same economic forces that have hit California, Nevada, Florida and other states that saw home prices skyrocket during the housing boom and then quickly collapse during the current slump. Let’s just hope that the region can rebound soon.
