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| 1988 - 2008 |
S&P/Case-Shiller US Home Price Indices: Data through August 2008, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, shows continued broad based declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States, a trend that prevailed throughout the first half of 2008 and has continued into the second half. Phoenix and Las Vegas are reporting annual falls of -30.7% and -30.6% while Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego are down more than 25%.
The chart above depicts the annual returns of the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite Home Price Indices. Once again, the indices have set new records, with annual declines of 17.7% and 16.6%, respectively. However, the acceleration in decline was only moderate in August. The July data reported annual declines of 17.5% and 16.3%, respectively.
"The downturn in residential real estate prices continued, with very few bright spots in the data," says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. "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%."
Nine of the 20 regions have record annual declines. Phoenix and Las Vegas are now returning -30.7% and -30.6% versus August 2007, respectively. Each of the California markets- Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego- are down more than 25% from their values 12 months ago. Miami and Tampa, the two Florida markets, are down 28.1% and 18.1%, respectively.
For the August/July period only 2 regions, Cleveland and Boston, had positive returns. Cleveland returned +1.1% and Boston returned +0.1%. Boston has had positive monthly returns for each of the past five months. Dallas and Denver’s streaks of 4+ straight positive returning months ended in August. San Francisco was the biggest decliner for the month returning -3.5%. This worsened from its July/June return of -1.8%. From August 2007 to August 2008, Dallas and Charlotte have the best relative performance. Dallas is down 2.7% over the year and Charlotte is down 2.8%.
The table below summarizes the results for August 2008. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are revised for the 24 prior months, based on the receipt of additional source data. More than 20 years of history for these data series is available, and can be accessed in full by going to http://www.homeprice.standardandpoors.com/
