Home Prices Tumbled 14.4% During The First Quarter

Data through March 2008, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, shows continued broad based declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States, a trend that prevailed throughout 2007 and has continued into the first quarter of 2008.

“The steep downturn in residential real estate continues,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index committee at Standard & Poor’s. “There are very few silver linings that one can see in the data. Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path, with 19 of the 20 metro areas reporting annual declines, and six of those now at negative rates exceeding -20%. Looking closely at these returns, you can see that 15 of the metro areas are also reporting record lows, and eleven are in double digit decline, with Chicago being the latest metro area to join these ranks. The monthly data paints a similar picture, with 18 of the metro areas reporting at least seven consecutive months of negative returns. For the first time in as many months, we finally saw monthly price appreciation in two of the metro areas – Charlotte was up 0.2% in March over February, and Dallas was up 1.1%.”

Las Vegas remains the weakest market, reporting an annual decline of -25.9%, followed by Miami and Phoenix at -24.6% and -23.0%, respectively. Charlotte is the only market with appreciation over the past year, returning +0.8%. In March, half of the MSAs and both composites fell by more than 2% over February. Miami was the worst performer, returning -4.5%. Dallas and Charlotte were the only two MSAs to provide positive returns for the month. Overall, the markets that grew the most during the recent real estate boom are the ones that are leading the current decline.