Spain house prices slide

Bloomberg

The average price of new and used houses and apartments, including government-administered housing, declined 2.3 percent from the previous quarter and 2.8 percent from the year ago period, Spain’s Housing Ministry said yesterday on its Web site.

That represents the first drop in fourth-quarter prices in more than a decade. The collapse of Spain’s housing boom, together with a global credit crisis that has forced lenders to impose tougher financing conditions, caused third-quarter home sales to fall by more than a third.