They are breaking records in the United States, lots of them, all of them bad. A record 19.1 million homes are empty and the share of repossessed mortgages is at a record high of 3.3 per cent.
The percentage of delinquencies (home loan payments that are 30 days or more overdue) are 7.9 per cent, the highest since records began in 1972.
The number of people planning to buy a home next month has dropped to a 26-year low, despite mortgage interest rates being close to their lowest for half-a-century.
Despite a small rise in January, home sales are 74 per cent below their peak from three years ago. Half of properties sold are repossessions.
None of this helps prices. According to the US Case Shiller 20-city house price index, property values are 29 per cent below their 2006 peak.
Residential properties are now 10 per cent undervalued compared to being 35 per cent overvalued at the peak, but consultancy, Capital Economics, warns a market rebound is not in the offing.
"Historically, prolonged periods of overvaluation have been followed by prolonged periods of undervaluation," a bulletin from the consultancy reads.
Unemployment is dragging the housing market down. With unemployment at a 25 year high of 8.5 per cent and rising, economists at First American CoreLogic expect property prices to continue falling in 2010. Unemployment is forecast to reach 9.5 per cent by the end of 2009.
Pushing up unemployment is the worsening economy. US GDP contracted by 6.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 and is forecast to fall for the remainder of this year.
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