Housing Price Declines Spread to 38 States in Feburary: Report

First American CoreLogic released its latest housing price index report for February on Tuesday, which found that housing prices continued to drop pretty steeply in key areas throughout the United States.

“Thirty-three states now show year-over-year real estate declines according to this latest LoanPerformance HPI release,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic. “However, on a quarter-over-quarter basis, there are now thirty-eight states with decreasing property values.”

One month ago, thirty six states posted a price decline on a rolling quarter basis through January 2008 — suggesting that the worst of the nation’s housing price woes yet lie ahead. The CoreLogic report is based on data generated by First American subsidiary Loan Performance, and generates its housing price index data from 7,508 ZIP codes, 957 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSA) and 670 counties located in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The company no longer reports pricing trends at the ZIP level to the press, and has said it makes that data only available to its subscribers.

From the data that was made available, the areas that posted the largest three month price declines during February included Cleveland, OH; Los Angeles, CA; Oakland, CA; Riverside, CA; and Tampa, FL — Cleveland alone saw prices drop 7.28 percent between December and February, according to the LoanPerformance data.

On the brighter side, Texas continued to rule the roost with four of the strongest housing markets in the nation, spanning Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin.

Fleming suggested that price declines in former bubble states may be moderating, while price declines in other markets could be accelerating.

“Regionally, it is notable that the three month declines in New York-White Plains, Philadelphia, Seattle, Detroit and Portland are steeper than the twelve month declines in these areas, whereas in California and Florida this pattern is reversed,” he said.