“The current assessment is that we expect house prices to maintain their steady state or potentially begin to further accelerate downward in light of the economic pressures… No news currently points to an expectation for an improvement in price levels in the near term.”
– Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic, on today’s news that national home prices were down 11.3 percent from a year ago in August, and that recently reported layoffs are likely to push foreclosure-related filings past the 3.2 million mark this year.
Crain’s reports this afternoon that foreclosure notices in the Chicago area rose nearly 42 percent during the third quarter of this year compared to the third quarter of 2007, compared with a 70-percent spike nationwide over the same period.
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