“A disappointing report. Home prices broadly declined in August. Seventeen of the 20 cities and both composites saw a weakening in year-over-year figures, as compared to July, indicating that the housing market continues to bounce along the recent lows,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s, said in a statement.

“Over the last four months both the 10- and 20-City Composites show slowing growth, after sustaining consistent gains since their April 2009 troughs,” he said.

Blitzer said the housing market appears to have stabilized at new lows.

“At this time, it does not seem that any of the markets are hanging on to the temporary momentum caused by the homebuyers’ tax credits,” he said.

 Annual growth rates slowed down in the three California cities, with Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco posting annual gains of +5.4%, +6.9% and +7.8%, respectively – a significant drop from the +7.5%, +9.3% and +11.2% reported for July.

“The recovery that started in 2009 has petered out,” Karl Case, one of the co-founders of the index that bears his name, said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio’s “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene from Wellesley, Massachusetts. He said excess supply was the main challenge to a recovery in housing. “That’s the big negative: the vacancy inventory.”

For the first time in 16 months, the San Diego month-over-month was negative (-0.6%) for both seasonally-adjusted, and non-seasonally adjusted from July to August.

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