US house prices: Home is where the debt is

Washington and New York may obsess over how to alleviate symptoms of the credit crunch, but one main underlying cause of the crisis – the US housing market – festers. Prices continued to fall in July. The average value of a single-family home is now 20% off peak according to the S&P/Case-Schiller index of 20 urban markets across the US. Even though the rate of price decline has slowed in recent months, there’s probably further to go. The fundamentals of the market look terrible. The percentage ...