Dallas area home prices continue to decline

By Candace Carlisle

Dallas area homes prices continued to fall in December, ending the year with a 1.3 percent decline, according to a monthly home-price survey released Tuesday by S&P/Case-Schiller.
 
It's good news that year-over-year, Dallas' home prices declined only 1.3 percent, said Bernard Weinstein, an economist at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University.
 
"Dallas showed a smaller decline than any other market surveyed by Case-Shiller," he said. "Detroit is up, but that's the 'dead cat' bounce."
 
Essentially, Detroit's home values have fallen so much over the past few years that it's not surprising to see a small bounce back, Weinstein said.
 
The survey's 20-city national composite fell 1.1 percent in December, wrapping up the year with a 4 percent decline, according to the report. The index hasn't been this low since February 2003.
 
The Dallas market, as well as every city except Phoenix and Miami, saw price declines. Atlanta, Las Vegas, Seattle and Tampa all saw record-low home prices in December.
 
The economy isn't strong enough to keep home prices stabilized, and the end of 2011 could signal the market is re-entering a period of decline, said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices.
 
For information on other markets, check out the released report.