Home Prices Down 16.6% in Year for Q3

"The turmoil in the financial markets is placing further downward pressure on a housing market already weakened by its own fundamentals," index committee chairman David Blitzer said.

For the third quarter, the index posted a 16.6% decline in home prices from a year earlier, worse than the 15.1% drop posted in the second quarter.

The indexes showed prices in 10 major metropolitan areas fell 18.6% in September from a year earlier and 1.9% from August. The drop marks the 10-city index's 12th-straight monthly report of a record decline.

In 20 major metropolitan areas, home prices dropped 17.4% from the prior year, also a record, and 1.8% from August.

None of the regions was able to stave off a decline from August to September.

Month-to-month decliners were led by San Francisco, which fell 3.9%, and Las Vegas and Miami, which each fell 2.6%.

For the sixth-straight month, no region was able to avoid a year-over-year price drop. Phoenix and Las Vegas again posted the largest drops, falling 31.9% and 31.3%, respectively. Miami, Los Angeles and San Diego didn't fare much better, with declines of 28.4%, 27.6% and 26.3%, respectively.

Year over year, Dallas and Charlotte had the best relative performance, with declines of 2.7% and 3.5%, respectively.

Cleveland was the one market to show improvement in its year-over-year returns, reporting a price drop of 6.4%, compared with the 6.6% drop it reported in August.

The Case-Shiller data came a day after a government report that sales of previously occupied homes resumed falling, dropping 3.1% in October, as the median price suffered its largest drop on record, and a week after new-home construction took its fourth tumble in a row for October, falling to a record low.

Still, the glut remains, as credit stays tight and the economic outlook remains bleak as mounting job losses have added another layer of stress on American households.

-- Kerry E. Grace, Dow Jones Newswires