The latest press release from the S&P/Case-Shiller folks: Pace of Decline in Home Prices Moderates as the First Quarter of 2012 Ends, According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices:
Data through March 2012, released today by S&P Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, showed that all three headline composites ended the first quarter of 2012 at new post-crisis lows. The national composite fell by 2.0% in the first quarter of 2012 and was down 1.9% versus the first quarter of 2011. The 10- and 20-City Composites posted respective annual returns of -2.8% and -2.6% in March 2012. Month-over-month, their changes were minimal; average home prices in the 10-City Composite fell by 0.1% compared to February and the 20-City remained basically unchanged in March over February. However, with these latest data, all three composites still posted their lowest levels since the housing crisis began in mid-2006.
As you can see, we’re now back at 2002 price levels, as you can see in this graph of the national Case-Shiller index combined with the percentage change from a year ago:
Here’s the year-over-year percentage change for all the Case-Shiller indices:
The data for Atlanta was far worse than the composite as a whole. More on that in a post later today.