According to the Associated Press, home prices fell in the first quarter but the pace of decline eased a bit from the record drop seen in the final three months of 2008.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency said home prices fell 7.1 percent in the January-March period, compared with a year ago. That marked a slowdown from the 8.3 percent drop in the fourth quarter, the largest on records dating to 1991.
Prices fell 0.55 percent from the fourth quarter of last year. That also was down from the 3.29 percent drop registered in the fourth quarter. It marked the seventh consecutive quarterly drop, but was the smallest since the third quarter of 2007.
A separate home price gauge, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller National Home Price index, on Tuesday found home prices in major metropolitan areas tumbled 19.1 percent in the first quarter, the largest year-over-year price decline in the 21-year history of the index.
Home prices have fallen 32.2 percent since peaking in the second quarter of 2006, according to the Case-Shiller index.
