L.A. home prices falling at 24.5% annual rate
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Home prices in Los Angeles continued their historic decline in May, falling 24.5% from year-earlier levels, according to the widely watched Case-Shiller index of home values.
National headline: Standard & Poor’s economist David Blitzer is talking this morning (CNBC) about an increasingly clear ‘regional divide’ in home prices, with Sun Belt cities showing severe declines while other cities show signs of a turnaround.
Overall, prices in 20 large cities continued to decline at the highest levels ever measured by Case-Shiller. From Bloomberg: ‘Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell at a faster pace in May, indicating the three-year housing slump has not stabilized, a private survey showed today.’ The rate of decline on those 20 large cities was 15.8% for the year ending in May.
More on the numbers: The biggest annual price declines remain concentrated in Sun Belt cities that experienced housing bubbles. These are the cities with the largest annual declines in prices:
Las Vegas -28.4%
Miami -28.3%
Phoenix -26.5%
L.A. -24.5%
San Diego -23.2%
Ray of hope: Seven cities experienced slight increases in prices from April to May, though Case-Shiller numbers are not seasonally adjusted, which makes monthly fluctuations somewhat suspect. These are the gainers: Atlanta; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas; Denver; Minneapolis; and Portland, Ore.
Local angle: Case-Shiller data show home price declines in Los Angeles have accelerated dramatically in recent months. (Update: A number of readers complained about the previous sentence, arguing that price declines are not accelerating at all, but actually decelerating. Read their arguments here.)
Month Annual decline in Los Angeles
Sept. 07 7.0%
Oct. 07 8.8%
Nov. 07 11.9%
Dec. 07 13.7%
Jan. 08 16.5%
Feb. 08 19.4%
March 08 21.7%
April 08 23.1%
May 08 24.5%
Note: The Case-Shiller report is an index, and does not translate into a dollar value for home prices, which is why this report does not mention the average, or median price for a home in Los Angeles.
--Peter Viles
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