Double-digit declines plague home price tags

Prices of existing homes continued to spiral down in July, with year-over-year double-digit price declines being reported in major markets, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Prices Index released today. The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index, which tracks home values in 20 major U.S. cities, tumbled 16.3% in July from the same month a year earlier. The index indicated prices tumbled at a double-digit pace in 13 of the 20 cities tracked. The biggest declines came in Las Vegas (29.9%), Los Angeles (26.2%), Miami (28.2%), Phoenix (29.3%), San Diego (25%) and San Francisco (24.8%). Also, the pace of the decline accelerated in July from June, with prices slipping 0.9%, compared with the 0.5% decline reported between May and June, the report said. In Case-Shiller’s smaller 10-city composite index, prices fell 1.1% from June to July and 17.5% from a year ago. “Little positive news can be found when cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix report annual declines as large as 29.9% and 29.3%, respectively, and all 20 cities are still in negative territory on a year-over-year basis,” David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, said in a statement. “The Sunbelt continues to be the story, with the seven cities that basically represent that area reporting annual declines roughly between 20% and 30%,” he said. Mr. Blitzer added that there’s “very little evidence of any particular region experiencing an absolute turnaround.”