Report: Las Vegas, Phoenix post steepest home price drops

From staff and wire reports

Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008 | 5:19 p.m.

Beyond the Sun

See the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city report

Home prices tumbled by the sharpest annual rate ever in August, with little indication of a turnaround in sight, a closely watched index showed Tuesday.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city housing index dropped a record 16.6 percent from August last year, the largest drop since its inception in 2000. The 10-city index plunged 17.7 percent, its biggest decline in its 21-year history.

Both indices have recorded year-over-year declines for 20 consecutive months.

Price declines in Las Vegas and Phoenix surpassed 30 percent in August, according to Case-Shiller, while prices in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego all plunged more than 25 percent.

"The downturn in residential real estate prices continued, with very few bright spots in the data," said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P.

Prices in the 20-city index have plummeted more than 20 percent since peaking in July 2006. The 10-city index has fallen nearly 22 percent since its peak in June 2006.

Prices in Las Vegas peaked in August 2006, according to the report.

No city in the Case-Shiller 20-city index saw annual price gains in August -- for the fifth straight month.

Home prices likely won't improve in September either as other key housing indicators have shown the housing slump still in full swing. Recent data the government and the National Association of Realtors showed the median prices for new and existing homes both tumbled by 9 percent in September.

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By neiman1

Oct. 28, 2008

8:14 p.m.

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The NO DRILLING on my watch of Nancy Pelosi and her puppet harry Reid have ruined home values in Las Vegas. The drop in gas price now will reverse as we haven't added anything to our supplies. This trouble in housing really started when people put all their cash in their gas pumps and quite coming to Las Vegas. Now our homes are worthless and it looks like massive layoffs after Christmas or sooner looking at the losses of the MGM and other employers. Stop the madness and don't send Obama to make it worse.
By Willy

Oct. 28, 2008

11:28 p.m.

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Pretty soon people will be blaming Obama for cancer with that sort of thinking about drilling and house values.

Who cares what these values say anymore? The only sellers at these prices are either corporate owners (banks) or those seriously desperate to sell. The problem is the only buyers are investors whose only goal is to push these prices lower. Once the media gets tired of this charade and stops blowing up what it means, regular buyers will come back and the prices will recover somewhat. Scarce commodities selling for well below the cost to build them always do.