S&P/Case-Shiller: Home prices keep falling
The Economy, Real Estate May 27th, 2008
The latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index released today has nothing bad horrible news.
With the only exception of Charlotte, all the other 19 cities showed huge year over year declines. Some examples: Las Vegas -25.9%, Miami -24.6%, Phoenix -23%, Los Angeles -21.7%.
This is how the media reported the news.
Home prices tumble a record 14.1% in Q1
NEW YORK (AP) — A closely watched housing index shows U.S. home prices dropped at the sharpest rate in two decades during the first quarter.
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller said Tuesday its U.S. National Home Price index fell 14.1% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, the lowest since its inception in 1988.
S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. Home-Price Index Fell 14.4% in March
May 27 (Bloomberg) — Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell in March by the most on record, pointing to continued weakness in the housing market that will further drag on the economy.The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 14.4 percent from a year earlier, more than forecast and the most since the figures were first published in 2001. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007.
Prices continue to slide as record foreclosures put more homes on the market and stricter lending standards make it harder to get loans. Falling home values are slowing consumer spending, threatening to halt the six-year expansion.
“Many households are putting their home-buying plans on hold, given the expectations that the house price corrections will persist,” Celia Chen, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said before the report. “The housing downturn remains in full swing.”
Prices dropped 2.2 percent in March from a month earlier, after a 2.6 percent decline in February, the report showed. The figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal effects, so economists prefer to focus on year-over-year changes instead of month-to- month variations.
