"The turmoil in the financial markets is placing further downward pressure on a housing market already weakened by its own fundamentals," says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's. "All three aggregate indices and 13 of the 20 metro areas are reporting new record rates of decline. Looking at the returns of the U.S. National Index, prices are back to where they were in early 2004. As of September 2008, the 10-City Composite is down 23.4% from its peak, the 20-City Composite is down 21.8% and the National Composite is down 21.0%."
Phoenix was the weakest market, reporting an annual decline of 31.9%, followed by Las Vegas, down 31.3%, and San Francisco at -29.5%. Miami, Los Angeles, and San Diego did not fair much better with annual declines of 28.4%, 27.6% and 26.3%, respectively.
Dallas and Charlotte faired the best in September in terms of relative year-over-year returns. While also in negative territory, their declines remained in single digits of -2.7% and -3.5%, respectively. However, both are at rates of decline lower than those reported in August's numbers. In addition, Charlotte also reported its largest monthly decline on record, down 1.3%. Monthly returns were negative across the board. Cleveland was the one market that showed any improvement in its year-over-year returns reporting -6.4% compared to the -6.6% reported for August.
