Signs of Stabilization in U.S. Real Estate Market

Trulia.com, smart real estate search to help you make better decisions, recently announced that 20% of current home listings have been reduced in price at least once, compared to 27% in April 2009, representing a 26% decline nationally. Trulia was one of the first companies to issue national price reduction reports and is available to provide historical data on trends taking place as early as April 2009.

“With such a dramatic drop in home price reductions over the past year, we’re beginning to see early signs of stabilization in the housing market on a national level, as well as locally in certain markets,” said Pete Flint, Trulia co-founder and CEO. “As the federal stimulus comes to an end this month, coupled with expected increases in interest rates and foreclosures, the next few months will be very telling for whether the U.S. housing market can be self-sustaining over the longer-term. Trulia will continue to track price reductions going forward as an indicator of health in real estate market.”

In April 2009, Trulia first started tracking price reductions, both nationally and for the 15 major U.S. cities. Of the original 15 cities, those hit earliest and hardest have experienced huge decreases in price reductions compared to the previous year, including Las Vegas (54%), San Diego (52%) and San Francisco (45%). Seattle was the only original city to see a significant increase in price reduction levels with a 15% spike compared to the previous year.

In addition to seeing fewer homes reduced in price, the current report shows several cities have seen significant decreases in the percentage amount slashed off of the original listing price compared to the previous year. New York and San Francisco both saw discounts on home prices drop by more than 30% compared to April 2009.

On the other hand, several cities actually experienced increases in the average price reduction. Houston, Denver, Seattle and Phoenix all saw double-digit percentage increases compared to April 2009.

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