The Pace of Home Price Declines Moderate in April According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices

/PRNewswire/ -- Data through April 2009, released today by Standard & Poor's for its S&P/Case-Shiller(1) Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that, although still negative, the annual decline of the 10-City and 20-City Composites improved.

"The pace of decline in residential real estate slowed in April," says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's. "In addition to the 10-City and 20-City Composites, 13 of the 20 metro areas also saw improvement in their annual return compared to that of March. Furthermore, every metro area, except for Charlotte, recorded an improvement in monthly returns over March. While one month's data cannot determine if a turnaround has begun; it seems that some stabilization may be appearing in some of the regions. We are entering the seasonally strong period in the housing market, so it will take some time to determine if a recovery is really here.

"The stock market bottomed in March and measures of consumer confidence have turned upward. This report shows that these better spirits are also appearing in the housing market," Mr. Blitzer commented.

In terms of annual declines, the three worst performing MSAs continue to be the same three from the Sunbelt. Phoenix was down 35.3% in April, Las Vegas declined 32.2% and San Francisco fell 28.0%. Denver, Dallas and Boston continue to fare the best in terms of annual declines down 4.9%, 5.0% and 7.7%, respectively. Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Portland and Seattle posted record annual declines in April. For the month Dallas was the best performer returning +1.7%, while Las Vegas was the worst performer down 3.5%.

Looking at the data from relative peaks-through-April 2009, Dallas has suffered the least, down 9.6% from its peak in June 2007; while Phoenix is down 54.1% from its peak in June of 2006. Excluding Dallas, all of the 20 metro areas are in double digit declines from their peaks, with 10 of the MSAs posting declines of greater than 30% and two of those - Phoenix and Las Vegas - in excess of 50%.

The table below summarizes the results for April 2009. 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.

Metropolitan April 2009 April/March March/February
Area Level Change (%) Change (%) 1-Year Change (%)
------------ ----- ---------- ---------- -----------------
Atlanta 105.36 0.3% -1.5% -14.8%
Boston 146.45 0.4% -2.0% -7.7%
Charlotte 118.69 -0.5% 0.3% -10.0%
Chicago 122.30 0.0% -3.1% -18.7%
Cleveland 98.07 1.2% -0.9% -10.5%
Dallas 114.39 1.7% 0.1% -5.0%
Denver 122.17 1.5% 0.1% -4.9%
Detroit 69.92 -1.5% -4.9% -25.4%
Las Vegas 112.39 -3.5% -3.8% -32.2%
Los Angeles 159.37 -0.9% -1.4% -21.3%
Miami 145.77 -2.0% -3.6% -27.3%
Minneapolis 108.63 -0.7% -5.9% -22.1%
New York 170.33 -1.7% -2.6% -12.5%
Phoenix 104.45 -2.2% -4.5% -35.3%
Portland 146.85 -0.6% -2.1% -16.0%
San Diego 144.43 -0.1% -1.5% -20.0%
San Francisco 118.46 0.6% -2.2% -28.0%
Seattle 149.38 0.2% -2.0% -16.8%
Tampa 140.41 -0.7% -2.7% -21.3%
Washington 167.30 0.8% -1.3% -16.9%
Composite-10 150.34 -0.7% -2.1% -18.0%
Composite-20 139.18 -0.6% -2.2% -18.1%
------------ ------ ---- ---- -----
Source: Standard & Poor's and Fiserv
Data through April 2009


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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