Daily Real Estate News  |  April 21, 2008  |   Sacramento Has Deepest Price Cuts
Spring is traditionally the busiest time of the year for real estate professionals. As the country enters its third year of a real estate slowdown, many are seeing the beginning of a thaw.

One reason is that sellers are giving up on boom-time prices and settling for less.

BusinessWeek with the help from Altos Research, a real-time housing research firm, ranked 14 of the country's largest cities based on how much sellers have cut listing prices in the last 12 months.

Listing information for New York City isn’t included, but a recent report suggests that Manhattan prices have climbed 13 percent compared to a year ago.

Here are some of the nation's best buying opportunities based on Business Week’s analysis:

Annual asking price change

• Sacramento, Calif : -40.96 percent
• Phoenix: -25.85 percent
• Los Angeles: -25.56 percent
• Las Vegas: -23.38 percent
• Atlanta: -22.19 percent
• San Diego: -20.34 percent
• Boston: -15.50 percent
• Miami: -13.84 percent
• Chicago: -12.34 percent
• Seattle: -3.83 percent
• Washington, D.C.: -3.53 percent
• San Francisco: -3.41 percent
• Houston: -2.41 percent
• Denver: -0.55 percent

Source: BusinessWeek, Prashant Gopal (04/18/2008)