Home price crash continues unabated into 2009

When 13 of 20 metro areas reveal record rates of annual price declines and 14 of those 20 areas show price declines in excess of 10 percent, a broader, more widespread trend exists beyond just "local markets."

by Broderick Perkins
© 2008 DeadlineNews.Com


Unauthorized use of this story is a copyright violation -- a federal crime

Deadline Newsroom - Real estate markets are local, but when 13 of 20 metro areas reveal record rates of annual price declines and 14 of those 20 areas show price declines in excess of 10 percent, a broader, more widespread trend also exists.

What's more, that trend signals what's happening in many local markets across the nation.

Standard & Poor's just released S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices reveals record level home price declines on a year-to-year basis ending in January for both its 10-City (down 19.4 percent) and larger 20-City (down 19 percent) Composite Home Price Indices.

Perhaps the best news to be wrung from yet more statistical doom and gloom is that the end is nearer this year than it was last year, but probably not by much.

"Home prices, which peaked in mid-2006, continued their decline in 2009," said David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index committee at Standard & Poor's.

"Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path, with all of the 20 metro areas reporting annual declines, and nine of the MSA’s falling more than 20 percent in the last year," Blitzer said in a prepared statement.

Blitzer said both composites have revealed consecutive annual record declines since October 2007. Likewise, the monthly data from both composites show 30 consecutive months of a beat down on prices.

"There are very few bright spots that one can see in the data," Blitzer added.

Hardest hit?

Market conditions slashed Phoenix, AZ prices by 35 percent, followed by a 32.5 percent plummet in Las Vegas, NV; home prices plunged 32.4 percent in San Francisco, CA; dove 29.4 percent in Miami, FL and sank 25.8 percent in Los Angeles, CA.

The smallest declines showed up in Dallas, TX, down 4.9 percent; Denver, CO, off 5.1 percent; Cleveland, OH prices slipped by 5.2 percent; Boston, MA, lost 7.3 percent in home prices and Charlotte, NC's prices were down 8.2 percent.

From the peak-thru-January 2009, Dallas fared best with a 10.8 percent decline in home prices. Phoenix, down 48.5 percent from the peak, fared worst. Home prices in all the 20 metro areas slipped by double digits from their peaks, with five of those areas (Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, San Francisco and San Diego) losing in excess of 40 percent on home prices, the S&P/Case-Shiller report revealed.

© 2008 DeadlineNews.Com

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Broderick Perkins, an award-winning consumer journalist, parlayed 30 years of old-school journalism into a digital real estate news service, the San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group, including DeadlineNews.Com, a real estate news and consulting service and Web site, and the Deadline Newsroom, DeadlineNews.Com's news back shop. Perkins is also a National Real Estate Examiner. All the news that really hits home from three locations -- that's location, location, location!

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