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Phila.-area housing showed smaller price drops than S. Jersey since 2007

Viewed in its entirety, real estate in the Philadelphia region appears to have held its own since the housing-market downturn began in 2007.

Viewed in its entirety, real estate in the Philadelphia region appears to have held its own since the housing-market downturn began in 2007.

But when broken into smaller metropolitan areas, as Fiserv Case-Shiller's second-quarter analysis of home prices has done, the picture is much different.

The city and the four surrounding Pennsylvania counties have indeed fared well, with median prices falling just 6.6 percent since their 2007 peak. (Median is the middle number; half the houses sold for more, half for less.)

Camden, Burlington, and Gloucester Counties haven't done as well, however, with a 16.4 percent median-price drop.

Atlantic City/Atlantic County and Ocean City/Cape May County have fared even worse, with declines of 25.3 percent and 20.8 percent.

For all four statistical regions, Fiserv Case-Shiller forecasts further price declines over the next two years: 3.6 percent for the Philadelphia area; 5.6 percent for the three South Jersey counties; 19.5 percent for Atlantic City and environs, and 21.5 percent for Ocean City/Cape May County.

"It's consistent with what I've seen," said Kevin Gillen, vice president of Econsult Corp. of Philadelphia, who monitors the region's housing market.

"Some further modest price declines in this area are ahead, but the majority of declines are behind us," he said, adding that "even after we've troughed, the recovery will be slow."

The exception is the Shore, "which is really getting hammered in this recession," said Gillen, who will release data later this week that show "significant price declines" in the New Jersey coastal counties.

U.S. home prices have plunged 24.7 percent since the second quarter of 2007.

This region's "housing market has weathered the storm better than most other parts of the country," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics in West Chester.

"The economy and job market have also done better, given its more stable health-care and educational-services base," Zandi said. Housing here participated less in "the speculation, easy lending, and overbuilding in the bubble, and has suffered less in the bust."

The second-home and condo markets in the Philadelphia area have been hit harder, Zandi acknowledged.

Prices for condos in the eight-county Philadelphia region have fallen 7.9 percent from their peak, to a median price of $240,000 in the second quarter of this year, and will dip 4.2 percent from now until 2011, rising just 0.3 percent in 2012, Fiserv Case-Shiller said.

The worst 12-month period for all these areas ended in the first quarter of 2009, the data show.

Median home prices in the city and the Pennsylvania suburbs remained flat in second-quarter 2010, gaining just 0.4 percent, to $200,000, from the same period in 2009. Median price in the three South Jersey counties was $199,000; in Atlantic County, $225,000; and in Cape May County, $305,000.

The data showed the national median price rose 3.6 percent in the same period, to $177,000. This year's second quarter included numerous sales benefiting from the now-expired federal tax credit.

The data show that Pennsylvania as a whole fared better than New Jersey and that statewide price changes are mirrored by their respective metropolitan statistical areas.

Pennsylvania home prices have fallen 7.2 percent from their peak and will drop 2.5 percent more through 2012, Fiserv Case-Shiller predicted.

New Jersey has experienced a 17.8 percent median-price drop since 2007, and values will fall 7.4 percent more by the second quarter of 2012, Fiserv Case-Shiller said.