Phoenix and Las Vegas home prices fall 31%

The August report(.pdf) for the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index shows the 10-City and 20-City Composite Home Price Indices at new record annual declines of 17.7 percent and 16.6 percent, respectively. Price indices for all 20 cities are shown below.
To aid in viewing this graphic, the order of the legend (upper left) reflects the top-to-bottom position of all 20 cities for the current month (far right). As such, the legend indicates which cities have managed to hold onto the largest real estate price gains since 2000.

Not surprisingly, a number of cities have consistently moved down in the legend, notably, Phoenix and Las Vegas, both of which were near the top of the list late last year and earlier this year.

The reason for their steady move down is clear to see when looking at the table below - both now sport year-over-year declines of more than 30 percent.
Miami is not far behind, nor are San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego. Regrettably, the curve for San Francisco in the first graphic above is somewhat obstructed - its recent decline has been remarkable, mirroring Las Vegas in declining sharply in 2008.

David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's, noted:

The downturn in residential real estate prices continued, with very few bright spots in the data. The 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite reported record 12-month declines. Furthermore, for the fifth (5th) straight month, every region reported negative annual returns. This started when Charlotte, NC, was the last region to turn negative back in April 2008.

Both the 10-City and 20-City Composites have been in year-over-year decline for 20 consecutive months. Of the 20 regions, 13 of them had their annual returns worsen from last month’s report. As seen throughout 2008, the Sun Belt markets are being hit the most. Phoenix and Las Vegas are both reporting annual declines in excess of 30%, and Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego are all in excess of 25%.

There was some good news in the report as both Boston and Cleveland posted increases in home prices from July to August. The Boston area has been a real outlier so far in 2008 showing a modest 1.5 percent gain since February.