The 20 city composite index from Standard & Poor's showed the decline from December 2007 to December 2008. It also showed a decline of 18.2% in the fourth quarter from the previous year, the largest in 21 years.
The reports warn that there are no signs of recovery. 'The broad downturn in the residential real estate market continues. There are very few, if any, pockets of turnaround,' said S&P index chairman David Blitzer.
'Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path, with all of the 20 metro areas reporting annual declines, and eight of those MSAs now with negative rates exceeding 20%,' he added.
The December data showed slight improvement in the annualized rates of decline seen in Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington D.C. The Sunbelt continued to house the worst performing cities in terms of year-over-year declines: Phoenix was down 34%, Las Vegas down 33% while San Francisco fell 31.2%.
Denver, Dallas, Cleveland and Boston reported the smallest annual declines of 4%, 4.3%, 6.1% and 7% respectively.
An overwhelming 18 of the 20 MSAs studied showed double-digit declines from their peak prices. Half posted declines greater than 20%; four of these showed declines in excess of 40%. Dallas is down 8.6% from its June 2007 peak, while Phoenix is down 45.5% from its June 2006 peak.
Overall, S&P reported that the data shows that national home prices have crept back to similar levels seen in the third quarter 2003.
'If one looks in detail at the annual return data, it can be seen that 13 of the 20 MSAs and the two composites have been reporting consecutive record declines since December 2007. The monthly data follows a similar trend, with all of the metro areas reporting at least four consecutive months of negative returns,' Blitzer added.