“That will be the first time collectively, as a nation, we’ve seen prices drop since the low point or the trough of the housing crisis,” said Alex Villacorta, vice president of research and analytics at data firm Clear Capital.
Villacorta points to a 1 percent quarterly home price gain from the second to the third quarter of this year. Last year that quarterly gain was 3 percent.
The West, which has some of the largest metropolitan markets in the nation, has seen a huge drop in distressed sales, as fewer properties go to foreclosure. At their peak in 2009, just over half of all sales in the West were of distressed properties; today that share is just over 12 percent, according to Clear Capital. Investors, consequently, are moving on to other markets in the South and Midwest, where there are still bargains to be had. The West is therefore seeing sharper drops in home price appreciation.