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Orders for Computers, Appliances Jump in April
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The drop in home prices as measured by the widely followed Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index was an indication that the housing slump has continued to deepen. The index fell 14.1 percent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, the biggest year-over-year decline since the index began in 1988.
"There are very few silver linings that one can see in the data. Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path," said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's index committee.
Prices nationwide are at levels not seen since the third quarter of 2004, according to Maureen Maitland, a S&P vice president. However, the index is still up 60 percent compared with 2000.
Two narrower S&P indexes set record declines in March compared with the previous year. The 20-city home-price index tumbled 14.4 percent. The 10-city index plunged 15.3 percent, a record in its 20-year history.
Nineteen of the 20 metropolitan areas reported annual declines, with 15 of them posting record lows. Six metro areas lost more than 20 percent.
Las Vegas had the worst performance in March, falling 25.9 percent from a year earlier, followed by Miami and Phoenix. Only Charlotte stayed above water, gaining less than 1 percent over the previous year. Prices in the Washington area fell 14.1 percent.
Last week, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said home prices fell 3.1 percent in the first quarter, the largest drop in the agency's 17-year history and only the second quarter of price declines recorded.
The OFHEO and S&P indexes are based on different groups of transactions. OFHEO's index is calculated using mortgages of $417,000 or less that are bought or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. That excludes properties bought with some of the riskier types of home loans. However, it has broader geographic coverage than the private-sector index.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
