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CoreLogic Home Price Index Shows Decline for Third Straight Month

National home prices in October were down 3.93 percent from year-earlier levels, ""CoreLogic"":http://www.corelogic.com reported Thursday, marking the third month in a row the company's index has recorded an annual drop in residential property values.

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October's reading follows a 2.43 percent annual decline reported for the month of September and a 1.08 percent drop in August, signaling that the deterioration in home prices is getting progressively steeper with each passing month.

CoreLogic says home prices would have fallen by just 1.5 percent year-over-year in October had distressed sales transaction been excluded from the equation.

Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in CoreLogic's national home price index (from April 2006 to October 2010) is â€"30.2 percent.

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According to CoreLogic's report, the five states with the highest appreciation in home prices in October were: North Dakota (+4.61 percent), West Virginia (+3.43 percent), Vermont (+2.59 percent), Maine (+1.97 percent), and Wyoming (+1.93 percent).

The five states with the greatest depreciation were: Idaho (-15.06 percent), Alabama (-9.30 percent), Oregon (-8.50 percent), Arizona (-8.25 percent), and Florida (-8.00 percent).

""We are continuing to see the weakness in home prices without artificial government support in the form of tax credits,"" said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. ""The stubborn unemployment levels and seasonality are also coming into play. When you combine these factors with high shadow and visible inventories, the prospect for a housing recovery in early 2011 is fading.""

""Last month, CoreLogic reported"":http://dsnews.comarticles/corelogic-shadow-inventory-jumps-more-than-10-percent-in-one-year-2010-11-22 that the industry's shadow inventory â€" measured as REOs that have yet to hit the market and soon-to-be-REOs in the latest stages of the foreclosure process â€" increased by more than 10 percent between August 2009 and August 2010.

CoreLogic says the shadow supply of residential properties reached 2.1 million units in August of this year â€" a volume that will take eight months to clear at today's sluggish pace of home sales. The company estimated that there were an additional 4.2 million unsold homes listed for sale at the end of August. This ""visible inventory"" would take 15 months to clear, according to the company's analysis.