The us cities with the biggest home price discounts

We created a list of the 10 U.S. cities with the biggest home price discounts. We compiled this list using the newly launched quarterly Home Offer Report from Trulia.com, a San Francisco-based real estate listing site. Trulia evaluated price cuts in America's 50 largest cities, as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Arizona clearly did not fare well, in part because of the double-whammy of a high likelihood that already struggling housing markets will face a second round of price cuts before properties move. Phoenix is one of the many Sun Belt cities where housing markets have taken a big hit during the recent real estate bust, with residential prices down nearly 45 percent since 2006.

Second behind Phoenix at the top of our list was its neighbor to the south, Mesa, Ariz., which is broken out as a separate geographic area in this report. The Copper State's second largest city, Tucson, placed 10th. 

With distressed properties selling for anywhere from a 15 percent to 50 percent discount, sellers of nonforeclosed homes are forced to offer price cuts to compete. Hence Las Vegas, the nation's foreclosure capital, with more than 26,000 foreclosure filings currently on the books, made our list at number seven. 

San Francisco, like New York, has avoided an abundance of price cuts. That's not the case for its Bay Area neighbor, Oakland, Calif., which is No. 6 on our list.  The one Midwestern metropolis that made this list is Minneapolis, Minn., at No. 3. During the year in which Trulia tracked price cuts, the Twin City saw them arrive the fastest — in just 45 days on average. The likelihood of a second round was estimated at 45 percent.

Interestingly, though, the ratio of listed homes that had their prices reduced has fallen from 40 percent last year to around 28 percent this April. "Sellers are actually pricing their homes much lower to start now," explains Kong. "There's not the disconnect (between asking and offering prices) that was there this past year."  

Source: MSNBC