INSTANT VIEW: Home prices fall further in April: S&P

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. home prices extended their record slide in April, with every top metropolitan area now posting annual losses and many showing double-digit declines, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller home price index report on Tuesday. KEY POINTS: * The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metro areas fell 1.4 percent in April from March and slumped by a record 15.3 percent over the year.

* Economists expected prices for the 20-city index to fall 2.0 percent in the month and 15.9 percent from April 2007, according to the median forecast in a Reuters survey.

* S&P said its composite index of 10 metro areas slid 1.6 percent in April for a record 16.3 percent annual drop.

* Home prices in a dozen of the metro areas have fallen for eight straight months. COMMENTS: NARIMAN BEHRAVESH, CHIEF ECONOMIST, GLOBAL INSIGHT, LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS:

"It's a fair statement. We're still a ways from the bottom, but the pace of the price drops seems to be slowing a little bit, which suggests we may be approaching a bottom. But I don't know if we're near a bottom, but we're approaching a bottom in term of house prices. I think that's probably right, which suggests that the very worse of the crisis may be behind us, although we're not done yet, we're not out of the woods yet.

"It's a little hard to tell, I think the market has other things on its mind, mainly oil prices, inflation and what's the Fed's going to do. It's almost like the housing and subprime crisis are old news. It's kind of odd but I think that's what it is. So I think this is fine, there may be a slight positive reaction to it, but the market seems to have moved on to worrying about other things."

JAMES CARON, CO-HEAD OF GLOBAL RATES RESEARCH, MORGAN STANLEY, NEW YORK:

"It is no surprise that home prices are slowing. The housing market has become a much bigger part of the equation over the last several months. But the fact that the survey was supposed to be down 16 percent and it is down 15.3 percent -- I'll take it. Any news is good news these days. The basic story is that home prices are weak, and we know that and the only thing we can say is that fortunately it didn't accelerate weaker."

PIERRE ELLIS, SENIOR ECONOMIST, DECISION ECONOMICS, NEW YORK:

"The S&P/Case-Shiller indexes fell a little less than what was generally expected and to some degree that reflects outright slowdowns in declines in some markets. It's not a striking move but it's the first time that has really happened. In the big scheme of things, some markets did not overshoot as much as others and the declines there ultimately should be smaller and a potentially sustainable level might be coming into sight. But the vastly overbuilt Sunbelt markets will continue to have trouble for a long time.

"It's not a striking change in the general state of affairs but it's perhaps the first glimmer of hope. Declines were slower in Chicago. Cleveland fell 9.5 percent year over year as of March and in April it's down 6.8 percent. But it's not a typical market. Prices never really went up there that much. A more telling case is Denver which has been doing better for two months. It's going to be a slow process but the less overblown markets will stabilize first and we're getting a hint that that's beginning to happen. Ultimately, with a very long lag, the serious bubble markets will settle down, too, but not in a timeframe that is meaningful for markets now."

RICHARD DEKASER, CHIEF ECONOMIST, NATIONAL CITY CORP., CLEVELAND:

"It is encouraging to see the pace of price decline slowed, but a single month does not a trend make. I would wait another month to reckon if such a trend is in place. The bad news is that the price is still declining. This is not representative of home prices across America.

"The potential is a vicious cycle which we may already be experiencing. Falling home prices are leading to more foreclosures which cause a further decline in prices."

MARKET REACTION:

* BONDS: U.S. Treasury debt prices hold gains

* CURRENCIES: U.S. dollar holds losses against the euro

* STOCKS: U.S. equity index futures pare losses slightly

* RATE FUTURES: Fed fund futures show 74 percent chance of August rate hike, steady from before the data.

EARLIER DATA FROM JUNE 24:

US chain store sales fell 0.6 pct last week-ICSC