Business World

Georgia home prices were essentially flat in October from a month earlier, but are still off significantly from the same period last year, according to a report issued Tuesday.

According to the Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, the price of a home in Atlanta declined 0.2 percent following monthly rebounds in price over the summer months. Still, prices overall are off 8.1 percent from October 2008, though that figure has narrowed.

The report comes a week after the National Association of Realtors said the sales prices of existing homes in November rose 2.4 percent from the same period last year.

Sales volume was up 33 percent over November 2008, one of the deepest months in the recession, according to the NAR report.

"The turn-around in home prices seen in the Spring and Summer has faded with only seven of the 20 cities seeing month-to-month gains, although all 20 continue to show improvements on a year-over-year basis. All in all, this report should be described as flat," David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, said in a statement.

The annual rate of decline has also improved nationally, and is the ninth straight month of improvement. The 10-city and 20-city composite indices were down 6.4 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively, for October.

Then national price was flat in October compared to September.

Denver was the healthiest market among the 20 cities, posting a 0.1 percent drop in home prices. The decline was 0.6 percent in Dallas, the next-healthiest market, according to the monthly survey.

Las Vegas remained the weakest market among the 20 cities, with a drop of 26.6 percent. It was followed by Phoenix, which saw a price decline of 18.1 percent.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index tracks sales prices of typical single-family homes in leading metropolitan areas.

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