US home price drop deepened in February-S&P index

By Lynn Adler

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prices of existing U.S. single-family homes extended their slump in February, with 17 of the 20 measured regions posting record annual declines, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller home price index on Tuesday.

The composite month-over-month index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 2.6 percent to 175.94 in February for an annual 12.7 percent drop. It has slumped 15.8 percent from its June 2006 peak.

S&P said its composite month-over-month index of 10 metro areas slid 2.8 percent in February to 190.58, for a record annual 13.6 percent decline. The index is now 14.8 percent below its highest level in July 2006.

"There is no sign of a bottom in the numbers," David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P, said in a press release.

Eight of the top 20 metro areas, as well as both composite measures, had their biggest monthly declines in February, S&P said in the release.

The price slide adds to the pile of evidence that the housing market slump, seen as one of the worst in a century, worsened in the first quarter.

U.S. home foreclosure filings jumped 23 percent in the first three months of the year from the last quarter of 2007, and more than doubled from a year earlier, as more overextended borrowers failed to make timely payments, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said on Tuesday. To read more, see [nL29815970].

One of every 194 households got a notice of default, auction sale or bank repossession between January and March, in the seventh straight quarter of rising foreclosure activity, RealtyTrac said.

The government on Monday said that the share of owner-occupied homes sitting empty rose to a record high in the first quarter, as owners struggled to find buyers and foreclosures mounted. U.S. Census Bureau data showed 18.6 million vacant homes.

"Sellers are just slashing their prices to move their mountains of unmoved inventories," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

"Coupled with yesterday's Census data on vacancies, this suggests further continued sharp decline through this year into this time next year," he said.

Foreclosures also intensify pressure on home prices, increasing the supply of unsold homes and forcing sellers to ask for less to lure buyers, several economists added.

The pace of the monthly drop accelerated in February, following January's slides of 2.4 percent in the 20-city index and 2.3 percent in the 10-city index.

"All 20 metro areas were in the red for the February-over-January reading," with all but one of the areas also reporting negative annual returns, Blitzer noted.

On a monthly basis, prices in each of the metro areas have fallen every month since September 2007, he said.