A new report puts Detroit at the top of a list of the country’s worst real estate markets, and home prices seem to still be sliding.
The study from Clear Capital, a California firm that analyzes real estate data, found that home prices in the Detroit area have dropped 15.5 percent in the last quarter, a plunge almost twice as steep as Milwaukee, the city in second place for lowest housing prices.
Prices fell almost 12 percent for the last year in the metro Detroit area and about 5 percent for the state as a whole.
However, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index released last week showed that while Detroit’s prices declined from October to November of last year, they increased by 3.8 percent compared to last year.
The report also shows sales of distressed homes acquired by banks after foreclosures rose to nearly 10 percent in the last quarter to 51.8 of total sales in Detroit. The study predicts that this market domination by previously foreclosed homes will make it difficult for the housing market to recover lost ground.
