Home prices continue decline in major cities

Two indices measuring home-price changes in major U.S. cities showed continuing declines in July, with each showing a steeper rate of decline in each of the seven months from January through July.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index tracking 10 U.S. cities was down 4.5 percent in July from the same month a year earlier, while the index tracking 20 U.S. cities was down 3.9 percent over the same period.

The year-over-year decline reported for the 10-city composite index was the lowest since July 1991.

"The further deceleration in prices is still apparent across the majority of regions, with 16 of the 20 metro areas showing a drop in their annual growth rate from what was reported in June," said Robert J. Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC.

The metro areas tracked in the Composite-20 Index include: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C.

All but five of the metro areas tracked in the 20-city composite index showed  declines in annual home price growth rates. The five that registered positive annual price growth were Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Portland and Seattle, and the indexes show that rates of growth have decelerated in these cities during the past year.

Both Atlanta and Dallas are getting closer to joining 15 other metro areas in registering a decline in annual growth rate.

Detroit showed the steepest year-over-year decline in annual prices at 9.7 percent, followed by Tampa, Fla., which had a decline of 8.8 percent; San Diego at 7.8 percent; Phoenix at 7.3 percent; and Washington, D.C., at 7.2 percent.

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