Housing prices still dropping

The Case-Schiller housing price index has just been released. The survey tracks repeat sales of the same houses. Eleven of 20 metros areas continue to show record decline in housing prices.

“The numbers (for November) didn’t completely fall off a cliff (from October),” said David Blitzer, the chairman of Standard & Poor’s Index Committee, in what passes for a sliver lining these days. “Before you go up, you’ve got to stop going down.”

The prices in the Minneapolis area dropped 2.1%, a much shallower decline than October’s 3.4% decline, which was only worse in Detroit and San Francisco.

We’re a little farther down the list this month:

Phoenix -3.60%

Las Vegas -3.40%

Detroit -3.20%

San Francisco -3.10%

Chicago -2.90%

Tampa -2.80%

Atlanta -2.70%

Boston -2.70%

Seattle -2.50%

Washington -2.40%

Los Angeles -2.30%

San Diego -2.30%

Portland -2.30%

Miami -2.20%

Minneapolis -2.20%

Charlotte -1.90%

Dallas -1.90%

New York -1.60%

Cleveland -1.20%

Denver -1.10%

In Minneapolis, the housing price index is at its lowest level since July 2002. In the last year, the price index has tumbled 16.2% here, which puts us in the middle of the pack. Phoenix had the biggest drop (-32.9%)