Home Prices Plunge To Record Level In August

October 28, 2008 2:50 p.m. EST

New York, NY (AHN) - Home prices in the month of August delinced to a record level by dropping by 17.7 percent on year-on-year basis, a report showed on Tuesday.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price indexes, a closely watched measure of U.S. home prices, showed that the declines continued in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States.

The report said the drop in the indexes is a trend that was noted throughout the first half of 2008 and has continued into the second half.

The report showed that the 10-city index declined by 1.1 percent for the month, while the 20-city index was down by 1 percent in the same period.

The 20-city index was down by 16.6 percent to a record level on year-on-year basis. The 13 regions out of 20 have seen their annual returns worsen from last month's data.

"The downturn in residential real estate prices continued, with very few bright spots in the data," David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's, said in a statment on Tuesday.

He added, "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."

In August, the areas along the Sun Belt were hit hardest. The report showed that annual returns in Phoenix and Las Vegas declined more than 30 percent; Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego annual returns are all in excess of 25 percent in the 12-month period.

In the same month, Cleveland showed positive return of 1.1 percent and Boston return was higher by 0.1 percent. The data showed that Boston has reported positive monthly returns for the last five consecutive months.