It's that time of the month again ....

Yes it's that time of the month (the last Tuesday of each month at 9:00 am
ET.) when Standard & Poors S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index is published. The latest for April shows continuing annual declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States with all 20 sample cities (MSAs) now posting annual declines, 13 of which are posting record low annual declines, and 10 of which are in double-digits.

David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's sums it up succintly "There might be some regional pockets of improvement, but on an annual basis the overall numbers continue to decline." (full chart here)

San Francisco Chronicle "Last month, foreclosures represented 43.3 % of all home sales in Contra Costa County and 26.8 % in Alameda County, according to DataQuick Information Systems."

Wall Street Journal "The weakness has not been contained to the bubble markets ...On a monthly basis, prices surprisingly rose in 8 cities ..... we attribute most of unexpected increase to seasonal distortions as prices are typically higher during the spring selling season –Michelle Meyer, Lehman Brothers who have a lot riding on the US domestic mortgage market ....

"In two years the price of a home will be the equivalent of the taxes due."
Comment by Good Luck. - June 24, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Seeking Alpha Comment by Dapperdan19 "For those lamenting/moralizing about credit worthiness, all I can say is that the credit quality going through and getting approved for the past 9 months is the best credit quality I've ever seen in my lifetime.

Anyone doing loans right now will tell you the same thing. It's much tougher to get an approval, but the benefit is that overall credit quality is extremely high right now.

Detroit Free Press "Metro Detroit remains the only metro area in the top 20 that has an index level under 100. It was at 93.79 in April, below the 100 set in 2000 as the baseline. That means home prices have not risen enough since 2000 to offset the current erosion "

Forbes "... another decline in the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, which fell 15.3% in April from the similar period a year earlier. The drop may be a blessing in disguise though, pointing toward the eventual bottom for the housing market.

Miami Herald " Military officials promised changes ...House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman talked of ..."defense officials overlooking Miam based AEY's ''long record of failed and dubious performance.'' That record, as compiled by the committee, included delivering damaged helmets to the Iraqi army, falsely blaming a hurricane in Miami for failing to deliver 10,000 Biretta pistols (James BOn's oridginal and favourite weapon) to Iraq's security forces and delivering the wrong model of laser pointer and rifle attachments to the U.S Embassy in Colombia.

''It appears that anyone -- no matter how inexperienced or unqualified -- can win a lucrative federal contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars,'' Waxman said, adding it was ``hard to imagine a less-qualified company than AEY.'' .... don't fret so, Senator, there are certainly worse ones somewhere in there who hav been scamming the DOD and the Pentagon , USAID for a long, long time.

Some scurrilous celeb rag asked David on his way out of the Lakers game who won...he looked a bit blank ... and said..."Who cares ?"