U.S. home prices fall 3.2 percent

NEW YORK -- U.S. home prices fell 3.2 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the biggest decline in 20 years, a Standard & Poor's report said Tuesday.

The home-price drop is the biggest decline since the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index was started 20 years ago, S&P said.

Home prices were rising at 7.5 percent a year earlier.

"The pullback in the U.S. residential real estate market is showing no signs of slowing down," said Robert J. Shiller, chief economist of MacroMarkets LLC, which computes the index for S&P.

Prices fell 0.9 percent from the first quarter of this year, S&P said.
Regionally, prices in the past year fell 3.5 percent in 20 major cities and 4.1 percent in 10 major cities, the report said.

Prices were down 11 percent in Detroit and up 7.9 percent in the Seattle metro area.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International.