Home Prices Fell 12% in 2009

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Better, but still grim

Actually, 11.9%, but why quibble over 10 basis points?

If you listen to the National Association of Realtors, (and if you have 2 brain cells to rub together, don't listen to the NAR) they say that this is encouraging because the 4^th quarter drop was the smallest quarterly drop in 2 years, but that's because we had the little gold rush for the tax credit.

If you look at the latest rent-to-own ratio, we still have some price declines to go, though, as I have noted before, rents are trending downward too, which would indicate that there is a lot more pain on the way than the rather facile analysis at the first link.