Broad: Prices May Drop Another 20%

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Eli Broad, a philanthropist and co- founder of KB Home, the fifth-largest U.S. homebuilder by revenue, said he expects home prices to drop another 20 percent.


“I don’t think we’re anywhere near a bottom in housing,” Broad told Bloomberg TV at the Milken Institute Conference in Beverly Hills, California. “We’re going to have a big inventory of unsold, unoccupied homes that’s going to take three or four years to clear out.”


Homebuilders, hurt by banks’ stricter requirements for granting home loans and concern over the rising number of homeowners failing to pay their mortgages, have begun work on the fewest number of houses since 1991, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.


“People were using their home equity as really an ATM machine,” Broad said, referring to an automated teller machine. “They were spending more money than they were earning by taking equity out of their home. That couldn’t go on indefinitely. We’re now paying a price for that.”


The number of mortgage borrowers behind on their monthly payments rose to a 22-year high in December, according to the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association. The trade group estimated that 16 percent fewer mortgages will be issued this year compared with 2007.


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