Broderick Perkins at the Reality Timesargues that the housing market was last year's top business story.
The market was so hot for a while, condo speculation (along with a concentration of high-end condos in some markets), drove up the national median condo price beyond that of single-family detached homes, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Last year, however, accelerated home price appreciation proved unsustainable, sales slipped, speculators split, renters stayed put, builders bolted, foreclosures reached historic proportions in some demographic segments and the inflated bubble of a housing market began to reenter the atmosphere.
It was the sudden reversal of fortunes that led Associated Press' newspaper and broadcast editors to put the housing market at the top of the heap of business stories for 2006, according to the news service.
"At the housing market's peak, buyers rushed to open houses, blank checks in hand. Lenders gave big-money mortgages to people who could barely afford their monthly payments. That ended in 2006, when home builders scuttled projects, walked away from land they'd hoped to develop and would-be buyers canceled orders," reported AP's Ellen Simon.
Everyone had been expected the housing bubble to burst and housing did indeed retract. The big question is how much more are housing prices going to drop in 2007 and will all home prices be affected or just those markets that have had the biggest bubbles.
