According to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index, which measures the sale price of existing single family homes in 20 major metropolitan areas, prices fell another 0.9 percent in May 2008, and were down 15.8 percent from May 2007.
File this information under “Tell Us Something We Didn’t Know.”
Actually, we knew it was bad, but we didn’t know it was this bad.
The Standard and Poors Report states that “For the second straight month, all 20 MSAs posted annual declines, nine of which are posting record lows and 10 of which are in double-digits. Both the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite are reporting record low annual declines.”
“Since August 2006, there has not been one month where we have seen overall price increases . . . For the month of May, markets that experienced large gains in the recent real estate boom continue to be the biggest decliners. Miami and Las Vegas were the worst performers returning -3.6% and -2.9%, respectively. On a brighter note, Charlotte and Dallas have recorded three consecutive months of positive returns. These two markets are also showing the smallest annual declines, with Charlotte own 0.2% and Dallas down 3.1% versus May of 2007. From a longer-term perspective, since January 2000, the best performing markets are Washington, Los Angeles, New York and Miami. The value of housing in Detroit is lower than it was in January 2000. Over the month, no region reported gains in excess of 1%. But for those that reported monthly declines, three were in excess of 2%.”
And with the credit market frozen, there is no end in sight to falling home prices and the housing crisis, now rapidly becoming the housing disaster.
THE FOX REPORT 