Home prices continue to fall in major US cities

Home prices in major metropolitan areas of the U.S. fell in October, even amid record-low borrowing rates. According to the Standard & Poor's /Case-Shiller 20-City Composite index, home prices across 20 leading cities fell by an average 0.6 percent from September and were 3.4 percent lower than the same period in 2010. The report is indicative of an anemic U.S. housing sector, which has been mired in high foreclosure rates, over-supply and weak demand for more than four years now. Even as interest rates are expected to remain near record-lows through next year, a slew of recent data has shown conditions in the housing industry are likely to remain challenging through this decade. However, analysts seem to agree that conditions are beginning to improve. "The only good news is some improvement in the annual rates of change in home prices, with 14 of 20 cities … seeing their annual rates of change improve," said S&P's David Blitzer, according to The Associated Press. "Some of the other housing statistics posted relatively healthy figures for November, but it seems that most of the good news was confined to the multi-family sector [rather than single family homes]."