Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell the most on record in July, indicating the threat to consumer spending was rising even before credit markets seized up in August, a private survey showed today.
Values dropped 3.9 percent in the 12 months through July, steeper than the 3.4 percent decrease in June, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index. The index declined in January for the first time since the group started the measure in 2001, and has receded every month since then.
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The housing slump ``doesn't seem like it will go away any time soon,'' said Michael Gregory, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto, who forecast the index to drop 4.1 percent. ``As far as consumers go, this is another sort of pall over'' their ability to borrow against the value of their homes, he said.
As noted in the existing home sales numbers just below, inventory is sky high. This news shouldn't surprise anyone.
