The New York Times reported today that home prices around the country are seeing a rapid descent.  The story reported that of 20 major metro areas surveyed, all but three saw declining prices.  I would like to see some of the metro areas were left out.  Take a look here for the cities studied.

 

What you will see is a good number of cities that anyone familiar with the news would have predicted to see falling prices.  Vegas, L.A., Phoenix, San Diego, Miami and Tampa were all very easy to pick as they had such dramatic run-ups in housing prices for several years.  Detroit is also an easy pick as Michigan’s economy is not in good health and Michigan is one of two states to see population declines.  Dallas and Atlanta are also reported to have declining prices, but each was less than a 1% decline. 

 

I didn’t see Austin, Houston or San Antonio on the list.  All are major metro areas and all are doing relatively well in terms of their housing markets.  How about Nashville and Salt Lake City?  They appear pretty healthy.  I’m not saying that this data isn’t worth reporting.  It is, but there is another part of the story as well that was left untold.

 

Can the relative weakness in these declining markets cause problems in other areas?  Certainly – they already have.  Fewer sellers in these markets might mean fewer buyers in markets like Austin.  We have seen the number of listings go up quite a bit and the time it takes to sell has increased.  Will these declining markets cause a national recession?  I think the media is sold on that one, but they are also sold on selling themselves.