Springfield Republican: “Pioneer Valley home sales drop 26%”

Today’s Republican reports on the state of the local and national housing market:

The Realtor Association of Pioneer Valley Inc. today released statistics showing that single-family home sales in the region fell 25.9 percent last month compared to January 2007. The median price of a home dropped nearly 7.5 percent, from $210,500 to $195,000, over the time periods.

Nationally, home prices dropped 8.9 percent in the final quarter of 2007 compared with a year ago, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index. That marked the steepest decline in the index’s 20-year history.

See also:

Bloomberg: “S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Fell 9.1% in December” (2/26/08)
“It’s inevitable that prices will decline a lot more in 2008 because inventory is so high,” said Patrick Newport, an economist at Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts…

Home prices will “continue to fall” and the housing slump is having a “broader effect” on consumer spending, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said yesterday at a conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Gazette: “Contractors assess extent of slowdown, as some projects lag” (2/18/08)
For the first time in recent memory, Northampton city planners do not expect to have a permit application for a residential or commercial project before them, when they meet later this month.

Building permits in the city are down by 300 filings in the first six months of the fiscal year, compared to the same period last year.

And the biggest residential development planned in years, a 90-unit subdivision slated for North King Street, has stalled for lack of investment…