How far will US home prices fall from their peak?

By Edward Harrison On Jun 30, 2008

I ran a short poll over the last week and the results are in. Readers at Credit Writedowns expect house prices in the U.S. to fall well in excess of 30%.

From where I sit, this makes a lot of sense (I voted too: for a 30-50% fall). If one looks at the Case-Shiller index, the 20-city composite is already down over 17%. Those of you who answered that prices will fall less than 20% must think house prices are not going to fall much further from here. However, only 7% of you thought this.

35% voted for a 20-30% decline while the plurality voted that we will see a 30-50% decline in U.S. home prices. 19% felt prices will fall more than 50% in nominal terms. That’s ugly!

Only time will tell who’s right. Thanks for taking the poll!

Edward Harrison 7783 posts 575 comments

Edward Harrison is a senior Editor at Bloomberg. He is also the founder of Credit Writedowns newsletter, a former career diplomat, investment banker and technology executive with over twenty five years of business experience. He speaks six languages and reads another five, skills he uses to provide a more global perspective. Edward holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia University and a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College.

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