Home Prices Take Record Plunge

Home prices plummeted a record 18 percent over the yearlong period ending in October as slowing sales and foreclosures pushed the U.S. housing market further into recession, a report released Tuesday shows.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices showed that home prices dropped at a record rate during the 12-month period, with all 20 metropolitan areas measured showing price declines — and 14 showing record drops.

Phoenix and Las Vegas continued to be the weakest markets, with each reporting annual declines of about 32 percent. San Francisco saw a 31 percent drop, and Miami, Los Angeles and San Diego were close behind, with declines in the range of 29 percent to 26.7 percent.

Dallas and Charlotte, N.C., fared best in annual rates of decline, posting relatively small 3 and 4 percent drops, the report shows.

David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, said the 20-city composite is down 23 percent from its peak in mid-2006.

"Home prices are back to their March 2004 levels," Blitzer said. "The bear market continues."

Blitzer said Atlanta, Seattle and Portland all entered the "double-digit club," with annual declines of more than 10 percent.

In addition, the report's monthly data showed no improvement in the national housing market over September's report. All 20 metropolitan areas posed monthly declines.

The S&P/Case-Shiller indices, released on the last Tuesday of each month, track the prices of single-family homes for 20 metropolitan areas from Boston and New York to Dallas and Seattle.

Meanwhile, the Conference Board reported that consumer confidence hit an all-time low in December as employers cut jobs and housing prices fell. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 38 in December from a revised 44.7 in November.

Last week, the government reported that sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in almost 18 years, while new home prices dropped 11.5 percent to $220,400, the largest decline in eight months.

Earlier this month, the National Association of Realtors reported that existing single-family home sales fell 8.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million in November, down from 4.37 million in October — and 8.8 percent below the 4.41 million-unit pace a year ago. The median existing single-family home price was $180,800 in November, down 12.8 percent from November 2007, NAR reported.

NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said the overall poor economic conditions are to blame.

"The quickly deteriorating conditions in the job market, stock market, and consumer confidence in October and November have knocked down home sales to another level," Yun said.