Home prices keep plunging; L.A. sees some of the sharpest declines
Third-quarter figures show a 27.6% drop compared with a year ago. Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Francisco are also hard hit.
U.S. home prices continued to fall at a record-breaking pace in the third quarter, with the Los Angeles area posting among the sharpest declines, according to a prominent index released today.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of home prices was down 16.6% in the three months ending in September from the same period a year ago. Home prices in the Los Angeles area, which includes Orange County, were down 27.6% compared with the third quarter of 2007.
The third-quarter national decline was greater than the respective annual declines in the second and first quarters of the year, which were 15.1% and 14% respectively.
David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, said, "The turmoil in the financial markets is placing further downward pressure on a housing market already weakened by its own fundamentals."
Home prices for the U.S. National Index, which covers the entire nation and is compiled quarterly, dropped to 2004 levels. The national index is down 21% from its 2006 peak
Phoenix posted the largest year-to-year decline, of 31.9%, followed by Las Vegas, with a 31.3% drop, and San Francisco, which saw prices fall 29.5% from the same quarter a year ago. San Diego's decline in the third quarter was 26.3% from a year ago.
Dallas and Charlotte, N.C., posted the smallest annual declines, of 3.5% and 2.7% respectively.
The Case-Shiller index compares the latest sales of detached houses with previous sales, and accounts for factors such as remodeling that might affect a house's sale price over time.
From those data, an index score is created to show price changes. An index score of 100 reflects January 2000 prices. The third quarter index score for the U.S. was 150.4. The Los Angeles score, which is calculated monthly, was 184.54 for September.
Hong is a Times staff writer.
peter.hong@latimes.com
