B.R. home price index drops for eighth month running

The CoreLogic index of Baton Rouge home prices was down 7% in March, when compared with the previous year’s figures. This is the eighth month in a row the local index was down. The CoreLogic Home Price Index for Louisiana saw a smaller decrease, falling 5.4% when compared with March 2010. The national index was down by 7.5%, also its eighth consecutive year-to-year drop. Despite the continued overall drop, Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, says the figures for this year suffer in comparison to those for 2010, which had the advantage of the tax credit for first-time homebuyers being in effect for the first several months of the year. “The first-time homebuyer tax credit pulled a significant number of sales forward and, to an extent, artificially supported prices. So, absent the tax credit, it is understandable that we see prices continue to decline when compared with last year,” Fleming says. CoreLogic bases its indexes on public sale records and databases. For the rest of Real Estate Weekly, click here.