Inman

California, Florida top list with local market price declines

Home prices fell in 21 states from October 2006 through October 207 and dropped in 21 of 31 major metro areas reported in a study released today by First American Corp.’s LoanPerformance.

The price of single-family detached homes tumbled 15.7 percent in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., market area from October 2006 to October 2007, according to the LoanPerformance Home Price Index, which analyzes data for repeat sales transactions.

And six of the eight local market areas tracked in the report that experienced double-digit price declines from October 2006 to October 2007 are in Florida or California, based on single-family detached housing sales data. Las Vegas and Phoenix also saw a double-digit drop in home prices during the study period.

California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona also appear in the top-10 list of states with the highest rate of foreclosure filings in the nation during November, released today by real estate data company RealtyTrac.

The U.S. Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight reported last month that home prices fell in 21 states in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, and dropped 0.8 percent nationwide in the third quarter. A separate price index by Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller, also released last month, found that national home prices fell 1.7 percent during the third quarter and declined 4.5 percent compared to third-quarter 2006.

In the LoanPerformance report for the October 2006-October 2007 period, the Riverside market was followed in its price decline by Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., which fell 14 percent. Las Vegas dropped 11.7 percent; followed by Oakland-Fremont-Hayward, Calif., down 11.4 percent; Miami, down 10.9 percent; Los Angeles, down 10.5 percent; Orlando, down 10.2 percent; and Phoenix, down 10.1 percent.

Honolulu topped the list of 31 local market areas included in the index report, with a 17.9 percent price gain from October 2006 to October 2007, followed by Salt Lake City, up 11.6 percent; San Antonio, Texas, up 7.9 percent; Raleigh-Cary, N.C., up 4.6 percent; Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas, up 4.5 percent; Charlotte, N.C., up 4.5 percent; Dallas, up 3.9 percent; Seattle, up 2.2 percent; and Portland, Ore., up 1.7 percent.

LoanPerformance reported last month that two markets among the list of 31 had double-digit home-price declines from September 2006 to September 2007: Riverside, Calif., down 13.6; and Cape Coral, Fla., down 11.5 percent. And 17 states had home-price declines during that period.

Oct. ’06-Oct. ’07 price changes, 31 metro areas

Source: First American LoanPerformance HPI, Single-family detached housing series