Nationally, home prices continued down in February

Home values continued to drop nationally in February, with prices in 19 of 20 cities falling to levels lower than in the same month in 2010.

The decline of 3.3 percent measured by the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Index put prices just 2.8 percent above the cyclical lows they fell to in April 2009. If prices had fallen below that cyclical low, S&P's definition of a "double-dip" would have been met.

That may yet happen, many observers say, because prices are expected to fall an additional 5 percent to 10 percent in the second half of this year.

"There is very little, if any, good news about housing," S&P index committee chairman David Blitzer said Tuesday. "Prices continue to weaken; trends in sales and construction are disappointing."

Recent data on sales of previously owned homes, housing starts, foreclosure activity, and employment "confirm that we are still in a slow recovery," Blitzer said.

Philadelphia is not measured by Case-Shiller's monthly indexes, but on Monday economist Kevin Gillen said the city's first-quarter price decline had slowed to 1.3 percent year-over-year.

That put the cumulative drop in the city's prices since the housing bubble burst in August 2007 at 16 percent, compared with 32 percent nationally, said Gillen, a vice president at Econsult Corp.

Some cities, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami, and Los Angeles, have seen declines much larger than 32 percent in the last four years. In fact, S&P's Blitzer said, prices in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Cleveland, and Detroit are below what they were in 2000, with Phoenix's just above what they were that year.

Philadelphia's first-quarter home prices were at 2005 levels, Gillen said.

Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., called the February Case-Shiller report "daunting."

An index produced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency has fallen 4 percent over the last three months, Newport noted, indicating that "the vicious cycle in which falling prices lead to more foreclosures, which lead to even lower housing prices, continues to play a role in keeping housing on the mat."