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Housing Market Slump Starting To Hit Pittsburgh

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Jul 17, 2009 7:17 pm US/Eastern

Housing Market Slump Starting To Hit Pittsburgh

MORNINGSIDE (KDKA) ― Until recently, Pittsburgh has been insulated from the real estate market crash that has affected the rest of the country.

However, the latest numbers show the housing decline is finally hitting values of homes in the region that have been going down for the last three quarters.

This is a sign that the housing crisis that has hit the rest of the country is now being felt here.

On closing day for young married couple Brock and Amber Bahler and baby Emerson. They're inking the mortgage papers on a two bedroom home on Duffield St. in Morningside.

"Morningside is a stable neighborhood and people want to move there," Brock Bahller said.

Solid middle-class towns and neighborhoods like Morningside are holding their own. Sales remain brisk and values are stabile, but prices throughout the region have fallen for three consecutive quarters.

"Fewer people are buying houses, less money is being spent on houses. That effect has put more supply on the market," Dan Murrer said.

It's the higher-end house like some in O'Hara Township that aren't moving. The houses sit on the market for longer and their values are falling, taking with them the overall real estate market.

"When you get into the three, four, five hundred thousand plus homes, it has become a buyers market," Hoddy Hanna said.

Falling prices are putting people in the market for an upscale home in the driver's seat. Hoddy Hanna of Howard Hanna Real Esate says sellers whose houses have lingered are now ready to deal.

"I think there are great opportunities in those houses for the buyers and I think sellers realize that and sellers that want to sell are being realistic about their pricing today," Hanna said.

However, even though prices continue to drop, Hanna says there are already signs that the decline in values is slowing down and beginning to level.

"If I were to look in a crystal ball and say if the global market, the global economy stays the way it is now, we will continue in western Pennsylvania to slowly work our way out of this inventory," Hanna said.

The hope that this is the end of the downturn will be short-lived, and that the Pittsburgh housing market, which has proved to be resilient through most of this recession, will prove resilient once more.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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