Bleak house prices keep tumbling

Home prices in the United States fell by a record 8.4% in November, for an 11th straight monthly decline, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 10-city composite home price index released today revealed. The grim November numbers follow an October monthly decline of 6.7%, a record drop at the time. The previous largest decline on record was 6.3% in April of 1991 according to the report. “We reached another grim milestone in the housing market in November,” said Robert J. Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC in a statement. The Standard & Poor’s report also showed a decline of 7.7% in the 20-city composite index. Some of the metropolitan areas that demonstrated the largest declines were Miami (-15.1%), San Diego (-13.4%), Las Vegas (-13.2%), Detroit (-13%), Los Angeles (-11.9%), Phoenix (-12.9%) and Tampa, Fla. (-12.6%). The only regions showing positive growth were Charlotte, N.C. (+2.9%), Portland, Ore (+1.3%) and Seattle (+1.8%).