Home prices falling everywhere: S&P

[zoog]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. home prices were falling in every region of the country in September, according to a closely watched index of home prices released Tuesday. Home prices fell in September in all 20 major cities covered by the Case-Shiller price index, even in cities that had been holding up before the August freeze in mortgage markets, Standard & Poor's reported.

"There is no real positive news in today's data," said Robert Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC, and the co-developer of the index. Shiller said it's nearly impossible to forecast when the market could turn around.

For those (like me) who like to see things in graphic form, here is my chart of declines in the 20 cities and two overall numbers that Case-Shiller tracks. Yellow is maximum percentage decline since peak, orange is current percentage decline (some have recovered somewhat from their largest drops so far), and green is number of months since peak.