Broadbased, record declines in home prices

A short time ago, Macromarkets released the October data for the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices showing a 6.7 percent year-over-year decline for the 10-City Composite Index, the steepest decline on record. Indices for individual cities are shown below:
The drop in the 10-City Composite Index exceeded the previous record decline of 6.3 percent from April of 1991 and the current 20-City Composite Index showed a similar year-over-year decline of 6.1 percent.

Robert Shiller, Chief Economist at MacroMarkets LLC, commented:

“No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim. Not only did the 10-City Composite post a record low in its annual growth rate, but 11 of the 20 metro areas did the same. If you look at the monthly figures, every MSA went down in both October and September. Eleven of the 20 MSAs, in addition to the two composites, recorded their single largest monthly decline on record in October. For both the 10-City and 20-City composites this was a decline of 1.4% over September”

In tabular form, the October data looks like this:
Miami showed the biggest annual decline at minus 12.4 percent, followed by Tampa, Detroit, and San Diego. Charolotte, Portland, and Seattle are the only areas still showing higher home prices than a year ago, however, these areas have all declined in recent months.