After Record Q4 Decline, Home Prices at 2003 Levels
It’s a sign of the times when news of a record decline in home prices in the fourth quarter of 2008 is utterly unsurprising.
The S&P/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index fell 18.2 percent, while its 10-City and 20-City Composite Home Price Indices fell 19.2 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively, all record-large declines in 2008’s fourth quarter compared with the year-earlier period.
David Blitzer, chairman of Standard & Poor’s index committee, said there’s little in the data to indicate any near-term turnaround. The 20-city index is down 27 percent from the peak in home prices in 2006.
Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path, with all of the 20 metro areas reporting annual declines and eight of those [metropolitan areas] now with negative rates exceeding 20 percent.
Worse yet, according to Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, is that continued large inventories of homes and surging foreclosures “mean prices will continue to fall rapidly.”
S & P said the worst metro-areas for falling home prices in the fourth quarter continued to be in the Sun Belt and included Phoenix (down 34 percent), Las Vegas (down 33 percent) and San Francisco (down 31 percent).
At the same time, Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington D.C. reported “relative improvement” in year-over-year returns, S & P said.
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