Home Sales, Prices Plunge

The housing market had another staggering setback in November, with sales of new and existing homes tumbling while prices took their biggest hit on record, the Wall Street Journal reports. Existing-home sales fell a worse-than-expected 8.6%, while the national median price fell 13.2% to $181,300, the steepest slide since record-keeping began in 1968 and probably since the Great Depression, according to the National Association of Realtors’ chief economist.

“November sales just collapsed,” one economist told Bloomberg. “Price declines are accelerating. As bad as this is, it’s going to be considerably worse in a month’s time.” (More housing market stories.)