Residential real estate took another hit in October, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes. That wasn't at all unexpected: We've been reporting on the declines in the indexes on a monthly basis for a while now, and the signs have not indicated a turnaround. However, another month of record declines was not necessarily a given either.

Last month it was the quarterly U.S. National Home Price Index that recorded record declines; this month it's the 10-City Composite index that has broken records. It was down 6.7% on an annual basis for October, and the previous record was a 6.1% annual decline in April 1991. Meanwhile, the 20-City Composite index was down 6.1% on an annual basis for October—almost as much as the 10-City Composite index.

Currently, only three of the 20 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) are showing positive annual returns: Charlotte, up 4.3%; Seattle, up 3.3%; and Portland, up 1.9%. The worst performer was Miami, which was down 12.4% on an annual basis, followed by Tampa, which was down 11.8%. Detroit and San Diego were down 11.2% and 11.1%, respectively.

Robert J. Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC and one of the creators of the indexes, noted that, in addition to the 10-City Composite, 11 of the 20 MSAs posted record-low annual growth rates in October.

October was also the second consecutive month in which all 20 metropolitan areas were down on a month-over-month basis. Detroit was the hardest hit, with a 2.4% decline; seven of the MSAs fell more than 2% in October from the end of September. Portland was affected the least, down just 0.3%. The 10- and 20-City Composite indexes were both down 1.4%. Shiller said that the composite indexes and 11 of the MSAs posted their largest monthly declines on record in October.

October 2007 was the 10th consecutive month of negative returns for the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes and the 23rd month of decelerating returns, according to S&P.

"No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim," Shiller commented.

It will be another two months before the results are available for the entire calendar year, but it appears that 2007 will be a rather downtrodden year for residential real estate, with few signs of an upturn on the horizon.