National housing losing streak continues

Add comment December 26th, 2007

This from the AP.

“US home prices fall by a record in October for 23rd straight month of deceleration”

BY STEPHEN BERNARD
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK — U.S. home prices fell in October for the 10th consecutive month, posting their largest drop since early 1991, according to a key index released Wednesday.

The record 6.7 percent slide in the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index also marked the 23rd consecutive month that prices either fell or grew more slowly than the month prior.

“No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim,” said Robert Shiller, who helped create the index, in a statement.

The previous record decline was 6.3 percent, recorded in April 1991. The index tracks prices of existing single-family homes in 10 metropolitan areas. It is considered a strong measure of home prices because it examines price changes of the same property over time, instead of calculating a median price of homes sold during the month.”