Case-Shiller: Home Prices Post More Record-Breaking Falls

By Heather Bell

Déjà vu anyone? Haven't we seen these kinds of home prices before? In, say... 2004?

Yep, that's right - the composite indexes in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Index series are back down to levels they last saw in the summer of 2004. The 20-city composite is down 17.8% from its July 2006 peak, and the 10-city composite is down 19.1% from its peak in June 2006.

And right on the heels of that announcement is another tidbit of less-than-uplifting news: The Conference Board says consumer confidence is at a 16-year low and the fifth-lowest level ever recorded. Yikes.

But back to home prices. Things aren't looking so good in the April results: For the 12-month period, the 10-city composite was down 16.3%, while the 20-city composite was down 15.3%. The annual declines are record-breaking in their magnitude - but they've been breaking those records quite a bit over the last year or so. On a monthly basis, the composite indexes were down 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively, for April.

click to enlarge

 

Meanwhile, despite the fact that eight city indexes saw positive returns in April, with Cleveland up a fairly whopping 2.9%, all of the city indexes were in negative territory year-over-year. The worst performers were Las Vegas, which was down 26.8%; followed by Miami, down 26.7%; and Phoenix, down 25%. Charlotte, the best performer and the last to sink into negative territory, was down just 0.1% on an annual basis. The next-best performer was Dallas, down just 3.4%; while Denver and Portland were both down 4.7%.

"One possible bright side to the annual figures is that three MSAs [metropolitan statistical areas] - Chicago, Cleveland and Denver - while still negative, showed some improvement in their annual figures over those reported last month," said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P. He went on to note that despite several MSAs showing positive performance for April, the other 12 have continued their slide, each posting negative returns for eight consecutive months.

"If there is anywhere to look for possible improvement, it would be that the pace of monthly declines has slowed down for most of the markets," Blitzer added.

So while the slow-motion freefall might be easing up, it doesn't look like a turnaround in home prices is imminent either, especially with consumer confidence numbers inspiring something less than, well, confidence.