1988-2008; 10-City Composite: Continuous line; 20-City Composite: Broken (bold) line

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for January, which were released today by Standard & Poor's, show falls in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States continued into the new year, with 16 of the 20 reporting MSAs (metropolitan statistical areas) posting record low annual declines, of which 10 are in double-digits.

The chart above depicts the annual returns of the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite Indices.

Both of the composite indices are now reporting annual declines in excess of 10%. The 10-City Composite set yet another new record, with an annual decline of 11.4%. The 20-City Composite recorded an annual decline of 10.7%.

“Unfortunately it does not look like early 2008 is marking any turnaround in the housing market, after the declining year recorded throughout 2007,” saysDavid M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's. “Home prices continue to fall, decelerate and reach record lows across the nation.

No markets seem to be completely immune from the housing crisis, with 19 of the 20 metro areas reporting annual declines in January and the remaining – Charlotte North Carolina – eking out a benign 1.8% growth rate. Looking deeper into the data, you can see that 16 of the metro areas are also reporting record low annual growth rates. The monthly data show that every one of the MSAs has now declined every month since September 2007, marking five consecutive months. On top of that, the declines have increased through time, in general, as 13 of the 20 MSAs reported their single largest monthly decline in January.”

Las Vegas and Miami share the dubious title of the weakest markets in January, reporting double-digit annual declines of 19.3%, followed by Phoenix at -18.2%. In January, Washington and Minneapolis slipped into negative double-digit territory with annual returns of -10.9% and -10.0%, respectively.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices measures the residential housing market, tracking changes in the value of the residential real estate market in 20 metropolitan regions across the United States. These indices use the repeat sales pricing technique to measure housing markets. First developed by Karl Case, Professor of Economics at Wellesley College and Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, this methodology collects data on single-family home re-sales, capturing re-sold sale prices to form sale pairs. This index family consists of 20 regional indices and two composite indices as aggregates of the regions.