By Andy Ostmeyer

aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com

Joplin home prices have slipped for the first time in a decade.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has reported that home prices were down 0.11 percent in the Joplin metropolitan area in the fourth quarter of 2008. Although other communities around the country have seen home prices fall, in some cases by double digits, for all of 2007 and the first nine months of 2008, Joplin home prices continued to rise.

“That means, according to our estimate for the Joplin metro area, prices were one-tenth of 1 percent lower in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with the fourth quarter of 2007. It’s not a major decline,” said Andrew Leventis, an economist with the federal agency. He said the data is collected from housing-price information submitted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and that it represents the bulk of homes sold in many areas, including Joplin.

The Joplin metropolitan area is defined as Jasper and Newton counties.

Home prices locally rose through the third quarter of 2008 by 0.49 percent, compared with prices in the third quarter of 2007, according to the federal data.

The last time home prices slid downward was in the fourth quarter of 1999, when they were down 0.56 percent compared with figures for the fourth quarter of 1998. Before that, the only other decline in the past 20 years was in the third quarter of 1990.

“As far as home prices, we are down a little bit, but it’s only a small amount,” said Cheryl Chandler, president of the Ozark Gateway Association of Realtors. She is with Re/Max Classic of Webb City.

She said the Joplin area is fortunate because home prices have continued to hold steady in the region relative to many other markets.

Midwest analysis

The median price of a home in the Midwest, which includes Missouri and Kansas, declined by 8 percent, to $131,000.

By contrast, nationwide the median price of a home tumbled almost 16 percent, to $165,400.

Home sales fell in 11 of 12 major Midwestern cities, with seven of those plummeting by more than 20 percent from prior-year levels, according to an Associated Press-Re/Max Monthly Housing Report, also released this week. The survey covers all home sales recorded in the metropolitan statistical areas by all local agents, regardless of company affiliation.

Des Moines, Iowa, was among the cities posting the biggest losses in the region, with home sales dropping by 25 percent or more. The others were Chicago; Wichita, Kan.; Indianapolis; and Kansas City, Mo.

The only Midwestern city seeing an annual increase in sales was Detroit, where deeply depressed home prices have brought in a truckload of investors and other bargain hunters.

Israel Fuentes, a real-estate agent with Home Center in Chicago, said buyers who normally would have taken advantage of lower home prices are now staying out of the market, afraid that prices will continue to crater.

“Everywhere has been touched and affected,” he said. “Properties that I sold for $410,000 a year ago now go for $120,000.”

Southern cities

The median sales price of existing homes in the South, which includes Oklahoma, slid 10 percent from last year, to $146,700, as distressed property sales dominated, while most markets wrestled with high inventory and low-ball offers.

In all, median sales prices fell in all but three of 20 Southern metro areas covered by the AP-Re/Max report, though those cities — Jackson, Miss.; Tulsa, Okla.; and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. — saw modest increases of 2 percent to 4 percent.

Jeff Humphreys, director of economic forecasting at the University of Georgia, said home sales in the South could hit bottom as early as late spring or early summer — coinciding with an expected boost from an $8,000 tax credit for new home buyers included in the stimulus package signed last month by President Obama.

But, prices could keep falling into next year as inventories remain a problem, Humphreys said. Home sellers who normally would have their houses on the market have held back because of the troubled economy, creating “shadow inventory,” he said.

“As soon as you get a slight firming of conditions, that shadow inventory will come onto the market and will be a weight on home prices,” Humphreys said.

Andy Ostmeyer is the metro editor for The Joplin Globe. The Associated Press contributed to this report.





Distressed



Up to 45 percent of sales nationwide are foreclosures or other distressed-property sales, according to the National Association of Realtors. Those properties typically sell for about 20 percent less than non-distressed homes.