Home prices fall again

Major metropolitan area home prices fell in March by the most ever, according to a report released Tuesday.

The Standard and Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index fell 14.4 percent from a year earlier, more than was forecast. Prices dropped 6.7 percent in March from a month earlier.

Existing single-family home prices in the Washington, D.C., area fell an average of 14.7 percent from year-ago levels and lost 2.5 percent in March alone. The S&P/Case-Shiller index looks at 20 U.S. metro areas. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007.

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Baltimore is not one of the cities the index tracks.

The number of units sold in the Baltimore region in April fell more than 31 percent compared with the same month a year ago, according to Rockville-based research firm Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. The firm found that 1,942 homes were sold in April, down from 2,831 in April 2007. The median sold price in the region also fell from $275,000 to $262,000, according to MRIS.

Las Vegas and Miami again earned the distinction of being the weakest markets over the past 12 months, down 25.9 percent and 24.6 percent respectively. Charlotte was the only area showing a gain with a 0.8 percent year over year increase and a gain of 0.2 percent in March.

"There are very few silver linings that one can see in the data," said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard and Poor's. "Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path, with 19 of the 20 metro areas reporting annual declines, and six of those now at negative rates exceeding -20 percent."