HOME PRICES DOWN

NEW YORK- Prices of existing single-family houses extended their slide across the country in May, marking the 18th consecutive decline in the growth rate, according to an index of major metropolitan areas.

The composite month-over-month Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 10 metropolitan areas declined 0.3 percent to 218.37, bringing the year-over-year fall to 3.4 percent, S&P said in a press release on Tuesday.

The composite month-over-month Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 metro areas also showed a 0.2 percent drop, to a 200.04 reading, or a 2.8 percent year-over-year loss.

"At a national level, declines in annual home price returns are showing no signs of a slowdown or turnaround," said Robert J. Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC, in the release.

Year-over-year price returns are continuing to either move deeper into negative territory or experience persistent diminishing returns although in May and April eight of the 20 markets showed positive monthly growth rates, he said.

That compares to only one or two of the 20 in the late winter and early spring but a few more months of data is needed to determine if this is the beginning of a turnaround since a sharp deceleration is still the national trend, Shiller said.

The measure of U.S. home prices showed 15 of the 20 metro areas now reporting negative annual price returns and 16 of the metro areas saw a decline in their annual growth rate compared to April's data.

The city of Detroit continued to lead the metro areas in growth rate declines, down 11.1 percent from a year ago. It has been in annual decline since May 2006.

The index was co-developed by Shiller, also a Yale University economist, who had warned of a house price bubble and predicted in the late 1990s the stock market was driven by excessive speculation.