No stop to crashing home prices in US

By the barest of margins,the index failed to plumb new depths. It is now at 139.27,essentially the same as the low of 139.26 that it reached in April 2009.

Housing prices are falling even though banks have been pulling back on foreclosures,which generally drive neighborhood prices down. They are falling despite low interest rates,which make houses more affordable. And they are falling even though they have already dropped by a third from their heady peaks in mid-decade.

It looks pretty bad, the chairman of the S&P index committee,David M Blitzer,said. Could it get a little worse? Sure. Could it get a whole lot worse,so everywhere looks the way Detroit looks now? To get there,youd have to paint a really,really grim picture.

Another devastating recession,perhaps? Potential buyers scorning en masse the notion of ownership? Blitzer does not see those happening.

This will be small comfort for anyone trying to sell in this environment,or merely wondering where the money for retirement will come from. Washington was the only Case-Shiller city where prices went up over the last year. But even it dropped slightly in February. Ten of the cities in the index,including Atlanta,Charlotte,Chicago,New York and Seattle,hit a low for the cycle during the month. That was one fewer than January.

Detroit was the exception. Why Detroit,by far the worst housing market in the country,rose when everywhere else was sliding is a statistical mystery.

For the 20 cities,prices are down 3.3 percent in the last 12 months. That is not much compared to the precipitous drops of 2008 and 2009 but some see the declines accelerating.

Capital Economics,a forecasting group in Toronto,previously said prices would drop about 5 percent this year. That forecast is looking increasingly realistic, Paul Dales,a senior United States economist,wrote in a note to clients.