Housing Market Still Sick in April

Home prices continued their fall in April, as a composite index tracking prices nationwide declined 15.3 percent from April a year ago.

Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller home price index of 20 metro areas fell 1.4 percent in April from March, and declined more than 15 percent year-over-year. In March, the index fell 14.3 percent from March 2007.

A composite index for 10 metro areas fell 1.6 percent in April from March, and dropped 16.3 percent from April of 2007, S&P reported.

The housing market is facing myriad problems – a back log of properties for sale due to mortgage defaults and foreclosures; lenders setting tougher standards for their loans; and a weakening job market causing consumers to reconsider a major purchase like a house.

Las Vegas and Miami led the April price decline, reporting a 27 percent drop in values. There were some positives as house prices in Cleveland and Dallas showed month-over-month gains.

"There might be some regional pockets of improvement, but on an annual basis the overall numbers continue to decline,'' David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P, said in a statement.

The Commerce Department is scheduled to release tomorrow data on new home sales, and the National Association of Realtors is scheduled to report on Thursday purchases of existing houses, which account for 85 percent of the market.