MacroMarkets polls more than 100 housing experts with a wide range of views, including FusionIQ CEO Barry Ritholtz, Moody’s Analytics economists Mark Zandi and Celia Chen, National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun, Freddie Mac Chief Economist Frank Nothaft, and Rosen Consulting Group’s Kenneth Rosen.

Read more at Inman News, Where Real Estate and Technology Connect.

An entire week has been devoted to films, workshops, presentations, events and seminars. This year over three hundred short films from forty different countries around the world will be showcased. All films will be presented at the Camelot Theatre of Palm Springs. Informative workshop, sensational seminars, and so much more will be held at the Renaissance Hotel.

The Palm Springs International ShortFest, presented by the Palm Springs International Film Society, runs June 21st through the 27th. Tickets can be purchased at the Camelot Theatre starting June 14th. For more information or to order tickets online, visit the Palm Spring International Film Society.

The Planning Commission is expected to approve a resolution recommending the City Council reject a proposed development agreement between the city and Wessman Development regarding the Desert Fashion Plaza revitalization project.

For information, please contact the City of Palm Springs at (760) 323-8299.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Home prices hit another new low in the first quarter, down 5.1% from a year ago to levels not reached since 2002.

It was the third straight quarterly drop for the S&P/Case-Shiller national home price index, which was released Tuesday.

Prices are now down 32.7% from their peak set five years ago.

“Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight,” said David Blitzer, spokesman for Standard and Poor’s.

The index covers 80% of the housing market, and this month’s report confirmed “a double-dip in home prices across much of the nation,” said Blitzer.

The housing market went through a brief recovery period starting in mid-2009, recovering nearly 5% of earlier losses. After homebuyer tax credits expired last April, the slump resumed.

A separate S&P/Case-Shiller index covering 20 major cities also dropped during March, the index’s eighth straight monthly decline.

Of the 20 cities, only Washington has posted a home-price gain: 4.3% over the past 12 months.

Minneapolis homes lost the most value over that period, with prices falling 10%.

Other big losers include Phoenix (- 8.4%), Chicago (- 7.6%) and Portland, OR. (- 7.6%)

Prices continue to be hammered by foreclosures with high numbers of repossessed homes flooding the market.

Many repossessed properties are in poor condition and sell at a big discount to conventionally sold homes, driving down overall values.

Falling home prices have a devastating impact on new home construction, according to Pat Newport, a housing market analyst for IHS Global Insight.

“They are a key reason why builders aren’t building new homes, even in the fastest growing states, like Texas,” he said. “Existing homes are selling for so much less, the builders can’t compete.”

Normally, new-home construction is an important contributor to the economic recovery. Not so this time, according to Mike Larson, an analyst with Weiss Research.

“Housing has been an albatross for the economy as opposed to an engine powering it,” he said.

If residential development had come back as it has in the past, the current recovery would be much stronger. There’s be much more robust hiring of construction workers, building materials manufacturers and drivers and deliverymen to bring the products to site.

Newport pointed out that when developers build a new home for $300,000 it adds $300,000 to the economy, as measured by GDP. An existing-home sale just adds 5% or 6% in broker’s commission.

“As a component of the GDP,” said Larson, “housing has been out to lunch.”

Read more at CNN Money.

A total of 158,434 U.S. residential properties either owned by banks or in some stage of foreclosure sold to third parties in the first quarter, a decrease of 16 percent from fourth-quarter 2010 and a decrease of nearly 36 percent from first-quarter 2010, RealtyTrac said.

Properties in some stage of foreclosure – default, scheduled for auction or bank-owned (REO) — had an average sales price of $168,321, down 1.9 percent from fourth-quarter 2010 and down 1.5 percent from first-quarter 2010, RealtyTrac said. The 27 percent foreclosure discount for the first quarter was unchanged quarter-to-quarter, and up slightly from a 26 percent discount in first-quarter 2010.

“While foreclosure sales continue to account for an unusually high percentage of all residential home sales, sales volume is well off the peak we saw in the first quarter of 2009, when nearly 350,000 foreclosure properties sold to third parties,” said James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s CEO, in a statement.

“While this is probably helping to keep home prices relatively stable, it is also delaying the housing recovery. At the first quarter foreclosure sales pace, it would take exactly three years to clear the current inventory of 1.9 million properties already on the banks’ books, or in foreclosure.”

A total of 107,143 bank-owned (REO) properties sold to third parties in the first quarter, down nearly 30 percent year-over-year, at an average discount of 35 percent, up from an average discount of 33 percent in first-quarter 2010. REOs comprised nearly 19 percent of all sales last quarter.

Another 51,291 pre-foreclosure properties — homes in default or scheduled for auction — sold to third parties in the first quarter, down 45 percent year-over-year, at an average discount of 9 percent, down from an average discount of 14 percent in first-quarter 2010. Pre-foreclosure sales comprised nearly 9 percent of all sales last quarter.

It took an average of 176 days for an REO to sell after it had been repossessed; pre-foreclosure properties were in the foreclosure process for 228 days on average before selling, RealtyTrac said.

Nevada, California and Arizona had the highest share of foreclosure sales. Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky had the largest foreclosure discounts.

Source: RealtyTrac

Market research firm GfK Custom Research North America conducted the survey on behalf of Move from April 11-15, 2011. The survey included telephone interviews of 1,200 U.S. adults, of which about 200 were identified as real estate investors. Data was weighted by age, sex, education, race and geographic region.

A third of real estate investors are planning to buy in the next 24 months, compared to 8.6 percent of typical homebuyers — those planning to purchase a primary residence, vacation home or retirement property. Another 9.1 percent of typical homebuyers, and 28 percent of investors, plan to purchase between two and five years from now.

Read more at Inman News, Where Real Estate and Technology Connect.

The serious delinquency rate — the percentage of loans in foreclosure or delinquent by 90 days or more — was 8.1 percent during the first quarter, down from 8.6 percent during the last three months of 2010 and 9.54 percent a year ago.

The percentage of mortgages in foreclosure was 4.52 percent, down from a record high of 4.64 percent in the fourth quarter, and the percentage of loans behind by 90 days or more dropped for the fifth consecutive quarter, to 3.58 percent.

Read more at Inman News, Where Real Estate and Technology Connect.

Foreclosure-related filings tracked by ForeclosureRadar declined from March to April in Arizona, California, Nevada and Washington.

Oregon, however, saw notices of default jump 236 percent, to 3,719. Much of that increase was attributed to Bank of America subsidiary ReconTrust, which filed 2,840 new notices of default in April, up from 131 during the first three months of the year.

Bank repossessions in Oregon fell 14.8 percent from March to April and 59.1 percent from a year ago, to 248, while sales to third parties were up 38.7 percent month-over-month, totaling 43.

Read more at Inman News, Where Real Estate and Technology Connect.

David Crowe, chief economist at the NAHB, defined a normal housing market as one in which 1.5 million new homes are being produced each year. He calculates that we are currently at less than a third of such a rate, but is expecting modest increases to show up in this year’s second-quarter reports. From there, Crowe anticipates that the recovery will stay on a steady upward track until reaching the 1.5 million mark by the end of 2012.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, defines a normal annual production rate as a slightly higher 1.6 million units, but doesn’t think the market will achieve that level until 2013. By the end of 2012, he predicts, the industry will be at an annual rate of 1.3 million units.

Read more at Builder.com.