House prices rise in northern Utah

A home-price index considered to be the most comprehensive reading of the U.S. market posted the sharpest decline in its 17-year history, and the St. George area followed that trend, while northern Utah had some of the highest price appreciation in the nation.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said Thursday that home prices fell 3.1 percent in the first quarter compared with last year. But in Utah, home prices increased 5.58 percent in the first quarter 2008, compared with the same period last year. Wyoming saw the greatest year-over-year increase at 6.34 percent.

Four Utah metropolitan statistical areas were among the top 25 appreciating markets in the nation, according to the report. The Provo-Orem area ranked sixth, with one year appreciation up 6.76 percent. The Ogden-Clearfield area was ninth at 6.64 percent. Logan was ranked 15th with a 6 percent increase, and Salt Lake City was ranked 22nd, rising 5.39 percent.

But the St. George area — which was once one of the hottest housing markets in the nation — is now experiencing the pain being felt by nearby Las Vegas and Phoenix. Southern Utah's largest metro area ranked 235 out of 292 markets, decreasing 3.65 percent from the first quarter of last year to the same period in 2008.

Nationally, it was only the second quarter of price declines since the index started in 1991. The price index first declined on a year-over-year basis in the final quarter of 2007, when it dropped 0.45 percent.

"The large overhang of real-estate inventory awaiting sale continues to force price declines in many areas, but particularly in places that had seen very sharp appreciation," Patrick Lawler, the agency's chief economist, said in a prepared statement.

Another widely followed reading, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index, has shown larger declines for major U.S. metropolitan areas. But analysts say the government index provides a more comprehensive reading of the nationwide housing market.

That's particularly true for Midwestern states, where prices never skyrocketed and have been less affected by the real-estate downturn.

Still, declines in the government index, which focuses on less-expensive properties and includes fewer houses bought with risky home loans that have gone sour over the past year, show the depth of the housing market's troubles.

Prices fell in 43 states, with California and Nevada showing the biggest declines. Home prices dropped by more than 8 percent in those states.

The government index also fell 1.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008, the largest quarterly price drop on record. The index is calculated by tracking mortgage loans of $417,000 or less that are bought or backed by the government-sponsored mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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