Home Prices At 'New Recession Low'

Enlarge Don Ryan/AP

When the housing bubble burst, many homes went into foreclosure ? further depressing prices.

Don Ryan/AP

When the housing bubble burst, many homes went into foreclosure ? further depressing prices.

There was a 4.2 percent drop in home prices during the first quarter according to the widely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices report, which was just released.

And after the 3.6 percent decline in fourth-quarter 2010, prices have "hit a new recession low" and are down 5.1 percent from first-quarter 2010.

"Nationally, home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels," the report adds.

According to David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices, we now have "confirmation of a double-dip in home prices across much of the nation."

Our friends at Planet Money make sense of the economic news over here.

Update at 9:20 a.m. ET. More from the report:

In March, according to the report, prices fell from February in all but two of the 20 major cities where S&P/Case-Shiller tracks sales.

Changes In Home Prices, March From February:

Atlanta -1.9%

Boston -1.7%

Charlotte -2.4%

Chicago -2.4%

Cleveland -1.8%

Dallas -0.8%

Denver -0.6%

Detroit -2.0%

Las Vegas -1.1%

Los Angeles -0.3%

Miami -0.8%

Minneapolis -3.7%

New York -0.9%

Phoenix -0.5%

Portland -0.7%

San Diego -0.8%

San Francisco -0.1%

Seattle 0.1%

Tampa -0.7%

Washington 1.1%

Source: S&P/Case-Shiller

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/05/31/136815778/home-prices-at-new-recession-low?ft=1&f=1017

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