US home price declines accelerate: survey
US home prices in top cities tumbled further in November, setting new records for declines, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller survey showed Tuesday.
The survey showed a record year-over-year decline of 18.2 percent in the 20 largest US metropolitan areas and a 19.1 percent fall in the top 10 markets.
The monthly drop amounted to 2.2 percent in both the top 10 and top 20 markets, suggesting the troubled housing market has not yet hit bottom more than two years after the bursting of a real estate bubble.
"The freefall in residential real estate continued through November 2008," said David Blitzer, head of the index committee at Standard & Poor's.
"Since August 2006, the 10-city and 20-city composites have declined every month -- a total of 28 consecutive months."
Ian Shepherdson at High Frequency Economics said that "prices have now fallen a massive 25 percent from their spring 2006 peak but show no signs of stabilizing yet."
Some of the worst declines have come in the formerly high-flying markets like Las Vegas, down 31.6 percent year-over-year; Phoenix, Arizona (down 32.9 percent); San Francisco (down 30.8 percent) and Miami (off 28.7 percent).
New York's decline was a comparatively modest 8.6 percent, along with several other cities that fared better like Dallas, Texas (down 3.3 percent) and Boston (off 7.4 percent), the report showed.
Copyright 2009  AFP American Edition
