Is the S-V agreement right?

[mittalashwani13]

Homeowners across the country are challenging their property tax bills in droves as the value of their homes drop, threatening local governments with another big drain on their budgets.

The above is an excerpt from NYTimes.com. The following is the link for the same.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/busin ... 45u6k5Kb7Q

Could anyone pls help me understand the bold portion of the sentence? Does the subject [the value] agrees with the verb [drop]? Am I missing something here?

Thanks for the help.

[madhur_ahuja]

I think it should be drops and not drop.

This is quoted from Manhattan SC:

In many expressions that designate quantities or parts, such as a number of, the subject of the sentence is in a of-prepositional phrase. These expressions provide the exception to the rule that subject cannot be in a prepositional phrase

It seems that one might argue that according to this rule, subject of the sentence would be homes and not value.

But I think, value is not designating the quantity here. It is a subject in itself.

[mittalashwani13]

I think the subject is, for sure, "the value" and also I believe that this is a correct sentence but I'm unable to apply the rules of Standard English which I'm aware of.

[nitya34]

agreed@madhur

[mittalashwani13]

Any opinions?

[lunarpower]

the original poster is correct: the sentence in the linked page is 100% completely WRONG.

it should either be "...the VALUE of their homes DROPS" or "...the VALUES of their homes DROP".

either of these fixes would be grammatically correct, but the second makes more sense, as there are multiple values (not just one value).
but, yeah, the original is just butchered.

ah, the new york times.
you guys should actually be reading well written publications. ahem.

[mittalashwani13]

the original poster is correct: the sentence in the linked page is 100% completely WRONG.

it should either be "...the VALUE of their homes DROPS" or "...the VALUES of their homes DROP".

either of these fixes would be grammatically correct, but the second makes more sense, as there are multiple values (not just one value).
but, yeah, the original is just butchered.

ah, the new york times.
you guys should actually be reading well written publications. ahem.

Thanks Ron for the reply...

until now, I considered NYTimes in the category of well-written publications ...

[lunarpower]

the original poster is correct: the sentence in the linked page is 100% completely WRONG.

it should either be "...the VALUE of their homes DROPS" or "...the VALUES of their homes DROP".

either of these fixes would be grammatically correct, but the second makes more sense, as there are multiple values (not just one value).
but, yeah, the original is just butchered.

ah, the new york times.
you guys should actually be reading well written publications. ahem.

Thanks Ron for the reply...

until now, I considered NYTimes in the category of well-written publications ...

i am of course exaggerating. the writing isn't horrible, but there are many more mistakes than you would expect from such an ostensibly august publication.