Gordon Crawford of DataQuick, noting the months of increasing home values in the 42 markets the company analyzes in its Property Intelligence Report (PIR), says the substantial drop in prices in December is a good sign that the housing market is leveling off, according to nationalmortgagenews.com. “It shows that home prices are starting to respond to fundamentals rather than proceed along a speculative bubble-like track,” he added. “However, even with this slowing pace, home prices remain above the rate that can be sustained by currently weak economic drivers, as average annualized home price growth across all 42 reported markets remained abnormally high at 9.9%.” Additionally, MHProNews.com has learned the PIR revealed foreclosures fell in 26 or the 42 counties on a monthly basis.

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