Home Price Declines Worsen As We Enter the Fourth Quarter of 2008 According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices

/PRNewswire/ -- Data through October 2008, released today by Standard & Poor's for its S&P/Case-Shiller(1) Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, shows continued broad based declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States, with 14 of the 20 metro areas showing record rates of annual decline and 14 now reporting declines in excess of 10% versus October 2007.

"The bear market continues; home prices are back to their March, 2004 levels," says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's. "Both composite indices and 14 of the 20 metro areas are reporting new record rates of decline. As of October 2008, the 10-City Composite is down 25.0% from its mid-2006 peak, and the 20-City Composite is down 23.4%. In October, we also saw three new markets enter the 'double-digit' club. Atlanta, Seattle and Portland are reporting annual rates of decline of 10.5%, 10.2% and 10.1%, respectively. While not yet experiencing as severe a contraction as in the Sunbelt, it seems the Pacific Northwest and Mid-Atlantic South is not immune to the overall demise in the housing market."

Three of the metro areas have given back, on average, more than 30% of the value of homes since October of last year. Phoenix remains the weakest market, reporting an annual decline of 32.7%, followed by Las Vegas, down 31.7%, and San Francisco down 31.0%. Miami, Los Angeles, and San Diego were close behind with annual declines of 29.0%, 27.9% and 26.7%, respectively.

Monthly data also do not show much improvement in the national housing market. All 20 metro areas, and the two composites, posted their second consecutive monthly decline. In addition, six of the MSAs had their largest monthly decline on record -- Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Minneapolis, Tampa and Washington. Most of the positive monthly data recorded in the spring and summer months, merely reflects seasonal patterns in home prices, as opposed to a turnaround in the downward spiral in national home prices.

Dallas and Charlotte faired the best in October in terms of relative year-over-year returns. Still in negative territory, their declines remained in low single digits of -3.0% and -4.4%, respectively. It should be noted, however, that both of these values are worse than those reported in the September data. In addition, Charlotte also reported its second consecutive largest monthly decline on record, down 1.8%. Cleveland and Denver were the only markets that showed any improvement in its year-over-year returns compared to last month's report.

The table below summarizes the results for October 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 21 years of history for these data series is available, and can be accessed in full by going to www.homeprice.standardandpoors.com

October/ September/
October September August
2008 Change Change 1-Year
Metropolitan Area Level (%) (%) Change (%)
----------------- ----- ------- ------- ----------
Atlanta 119.77 -2.4% -1.3% -10.5%
Boston 159.17 -1.1% -1.1% -6.0%
Charlotte 128.02 -1.8% -1.3% -4.4%
Chicago 145.49 -1.6% -1.1% -10.8%
Cleveland 108.76 -1.0% -0.6% -6.2%
Dallas 120.60 -1.1% -0.7% -3.0%
Denver 129.05 -1.5% -1.3% -5.2%
Detroit 86.10 -4.5% -2.5% -20.4%
Las Vegas 142.57 -2.7% -2.6% -31.7%
Los Angeles 179.82 -2.6% -2.5% -27.9%
Miami 173.42 -3.0% -2.6% -29.0%
Minneapolis 135.71 -3.4% -1.0% -16.3%
New York 190.04 -0.9% -0.9% -7.5%
Phoenix 135.18 -3.3% -3.5% -32.7%
Portland 166.44 -1.9% -1.3% -10.1%
San Diego 159.12 -3.0% -2.4% -26.7%
San Francisco 139.44 -4.2% -3.9% -31.0%
Seattle 170.45 -1.4% -1.4% -10.2%
Tampa 165.44 -3.4% -1.8% -19.8%
Washington 184.92 -2.7% -2.1% -18.7%
Composite-10 169.78 -2.1% -1.9% -19.1%
Composite-20 158.16 -2.2% -1.8% -18.0%
------------ ------ ---- ---- -----
Source: Standard & Poor's and Fiserv
Data through October 2008


The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are published on the last Tuesday of each month at 9:00 am ET. They are constructed to accurately track the price path of typical single-family homes located in each metropolitan area provided. Each index combines matched price pairs for thousands of individual houses from the available universe of arms-length sales data. The S&P/Case-Shiller National U.S. Home Price Index tracks the value of single-family housing within the United States. The index is a composite of single-family home price indices for the nine U.S. Census divisions and is calculated quarterly. The S&P/Case-Shiller Composite of 10 Home Price Index is a value-weighted average of the 10 original metro area indices. The S&P/Case-Shiller Composite of 20 Home Price Index is a value-weighted average of the 20 metro area indices. The indices have a base value of 100 in January 2000; thus, for example, a current index value of 150 translates to a 50% appreciation rate since January 2000 for a typical home located within the subject market.

These indices are generated and published under agreements between Standard & Poor's and Fiserv, Inc.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are produced by Fiserv, Inc. In addition to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, Fiserv also offers home price index sets covering thousands of zip codes, counties, metro areas, and state markets. The indices, published by Standard & Poor's, represent just a small subset of the broader data available through Fiserv.

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