US housing figures and other data: A picture of rapidly growing social misery

Home prices continued to fall last month, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price indexes, a widely followed measurement. In 20 US metropolitan areas home prices declined in April by the most on record, 15.3 percent from a year earlier, following a 14.3 percent decline in March. The drop in prices has erased gains made since 2004.

The figures for selected major metropolitan areas are staggering. Las Vegas and Miami saw annual price declines of 26.8 percent and 26.7 percent, respectively.

Home price declines in Los Angeles are accelerating, falling at an annual rate of 23.1 percent in April, as compared with 21.7 percent in March. The housing collapse is most severe in the west and Florida, notes the Los Angeles Times, with cities in those regions showing price declines much worse than the rest of the country. Home prices fell by 25 percent in Phoenix, 22.4 percent in San Diego and 22.1 percent in San Francisco.

The price of homes in metropolitan Detroit fell by 18 percent compared with April 2007, and 1.9 percent since March (a 23 percent annual rate).

MarketWatch.com pointed out, Home prices surged in 2003 through 2006, climbing by a cumulative 52%, according to Case-Shiller. Since then, however, the housing and credit bubbles have burst and homeowners have given up half of their gains from earlier in the decade.

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