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U.S. home prices continued their slow downward trend, sliding again in February after ending last year at their lowest levels since the housing crisis began in mid-2006. The latest results put in question whether the market is forging a bottom, the April S&P/Case Shiller report showed.
Both the 10-City and 20-City Composite indexes posted month-on-month declines in February of 0.8 percent. The benchmarks now sit at new post-crisis lows. The data showed that home values across the U.S. are back to levels not seen in a decade.
Still, a number of encouraging economic indicators such as an improving job market and slowly growing demand for homes loom as factors that some hope should start to help underpin housing values, even if consumer confidence remains low for now.
Some 16 cities of the 20 surveyed saw home prices drop in February from January levels, with nine of them forging new cycle lows.
The 10-City and 20-City Com-posites in February saw year-on-year declines of 3.6 and 3.5 percent, respectively, numbers that showed a slight improvement from year-on-year declines just a month earlier.
What’s more, 15 of the 20 cities surveyed also saw their annual rates of decline moderate in February, while Washington, D.C.’s home prices remained unchanged on a year-on-year basis.
All in all, home values across the U.S. remain 35 percent below their peak levels seen in mid-2006.
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