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Home prices unchanged in August from July

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 28, 2008 at 6:47 a.m.
Updated October 28, 2008 at 6:47 a.m.

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Home prices in the Denver area were unchanged in August from July, shows the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, released this morning.

However, the consecutive month over month increase, which started in the Denver area in March, came to a halt. Independent broker Gary Bauer, who tracks the Denver area market, last month said he didn’t think the appreciation increase would continue through August.

“Dallas and Denver’s streak of 4+ straight positive returning months ended in August,” according to the report.

Still, the Denver-area is out-performing the 20 major cities tracked in the report.

In the one-year ending in August, home values in the Denver area were down 5.1 percent, compared with a 16.6 percent decline for all 20 cities.

Only three cities performed better than Denver during the year ending in August: Cleveland, down 2.7 percent; Charlotte, N.C., down 2.8 percent; and Boston, down 4.7 percent.

“The downturn in residential real estate prices continued, with very few bright spots in the data,” said David M. Bitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s.

“The 10-city composite and the 20-city composite, reported record 12-month declines,” he said. “Furthermore, for the fifth straight month, every region reported negative annual returns. Both the 10-city and 20-city composites have been in year-over-year declines for 20 consecutive months. Of the 20 regions, 13 of them had their annual returns worsen form last month’s report. As seen through 2008, the Sun Belt markets are being hit the most”

Phoenix was the worst performing market on a 12-month basis, dropping 30.7 percent. It was closely followed by Las Vegas, with a 30.6 percent decline.

From July to August, only Cleveland and Boston showed positive returns, at 1.1 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively.

The overall drop for the 20 cities from July to August was 1 percent.