Fitch Releases Report on Regional Trends, Forecasts

""Fitch Ratings"":http://www.fitchratings.com/ has released its commentary on the current rends in regional home pricing, noting that significant variability persists among each area surveyed.

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In its recent report, Fitch also called for the nation's housing recovery to continue at an ""irregular and anemic pace"" for the duration of 2012.

According to data from Fitch, the West has been hardest hit by flagging home prices, stating that states in the region ""have undergone a radical structural shift over the last five years, diverging somewhat from other parts of the country.""

Fitch said that in the West, California is enduring the strongest impact of the general downward trend in U.S. home pricing.

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Citing tighter credit standards and static levels of household income, Fitch's analysis revealed that all regions are experiencing lower prices for new home sales, as well as a broader buyer prevalency for purchasing smaller homes. In the West, both trends were especially evident across Fitch's findings.

""Census data indicate that new single-family homes priced under $200,000 now account for 22.9 percent of the total in the West, compared with 12.2 percent in 2007. Over the same period, the share of new sales driven by homes priced above $500,000 shrank from 22.7 percent to just 8.6 percent of all new sales in the region,"" Fitch stated.

Despite the poor numbers seen in the West recently, Fitch did reveal that it ""may be the first region to show material improvements in pricing."" The group pointed to the minimal yet important 0.5 percent uptick in home pricing in the area during the fourth-quarter of last year as a sign of positive change.

During the same period, the Northeast, Midwest, and South regions continued to show only decreases in pricing. However, Fitch's statistics showed that borrowers nationwide are slowly ""starting to apply for larger mortgages, probably for trade-up houses,"" indicating forward progress is imminent.

Lastly, the report examined the country's Fitch-rated homebuilders, forecasting which companies appear set to benefit from the U.S. real estate market during the year ahead. Fitch found that ""Toll Brothers"":http://www.tollbrothers.com/ and ""Standard Pacific"":http://www.standardpacifichomes.com/ could be headed for a strong 2012 based on current analysis.