First American CoreLogic said that home prices fell in 34 US states in 2008 as it became harder to get a mortgage and foreclosures hammered property values. It added that prices for single family detached houses fell a record 10.6% nationally, the biggest annual decline in data that goes back to 1976.
Mr Mark Fleming chief economist at First American said that "The geographic breadth of the decline expanded in 2008. Even markets with few foreclosures are being drawn in by fundamental economic conditions.""
First American, which sells mortgage data, reported defaults or foreclosures on 3.4 million properties in 2008, up by 76% YoY from 2007. It said that US home prices have dropped by 18.5% from their peak in July 2006 and are now at May 2004 levels.
First American said that California led last year"s decline with a 27% drop, followed by Nevada at 23%, Arizona at 19% and Florida at 18%. Prices tumbled by 14% in Rhode Island, 10% in Minnesota, 9% in Wyoming, New Hampshire and Maryland and 8 percent in New York.
Mr Fleming said that "The magnitude of the declines is similar to what we experienced previously in regional recessions that hit Southern California and greater Boston in the early 1990s and eastern Texas and Oklahoma in the early 1980s."
According to First American"s data, before 2008, the only annual price drop for US houses in the last three decades was 2.9% in 2007. Prices rose by 4.2% in 2008 in West Virginia and 3.6% in Texas and South Dakota. Montana prices rose by 2.6%, Mississippi saw a 1.7% increase, Utah a 1.5% gain and New Mexico a rise of 1.3%.