U.S. home prices fell by a record in January

The market is just adjusting itself. Home prices have been inflated for the last few years and are now readjusting.

Houses are still expensive here in Salt Lake City, costing roughly twice as much as they would anywhere else (not counting California). Unfortunately, building quality has taken a nosedive. They are just building them as fast as they can. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the new houses are being built using cheap labor supplied by people who are probably in this country illegally.

Its about time for the prices to come back into line with wages. Since most Americans make their money through Salaries and Wages, its time for the average person to reasonably be able to afford to buy. I'm talking about the average 30 K to 40 K breadwinner which comprises a great deal of the American people. Sure you have your 50 to 100 K people but most people are in that range between 30 K to 40 K and in many places they simply cant afford to buy.

Building quality is crap even here in the Midwest. Too many illegals building these houses. Had a friend who about 10 years ago bought a house for 80 K brand new out of the box. Well not 2 months later the door was coming apart, etc, etc, etc. You can name the problem and it started up. Had to constantly get things repaired.

FedUpAmerican wrote:

Houses are still expensive here in Salt Lake City, costing roughly twice as much as they would anywhere else (not counting California). Unfortunately, building quality has taken a nosedive. They are just building them as fast as they can. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the new houses are being built using cheap labor supplied by people who are probably in this country illegally.

Unfortunately, the pain is everywhere. It seems odd to me when you said prices where so high in Utah, so I checked the ACCRA cost of living data. Salt Lake is just about average -- 93.2 for housing / 99.4 overall where 100 is average.

If the average is painful, we have a serious problem. None of my children have any realistic prospect of affording a house in their hometown. We need much more lower cost housing, located somewhere other than distant suburbs. I think it would be a great long term good if the average prices fell to half of what they are now, but so many people are locked into high mortgages and dependent financially on their equity in their houses.

Let it play out until the prices stabilize. No federal bailout can correct the underlying problem of overproduction and artificially high prices.