Home Prices dip, Oregon better off than most

Home prices across 20 major U.S. cities have dropped a record 15.3% in the past year and are now back to where they were in the summer of 2004, according to the Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday by Standard & Poor's. Case-Shiller is deemed one of the most reliable measures of home prices because they track the same homes through their program, not different properties as some other reports.

Here's the 20 city-by-city breakdown in the Case-Shiller index:

Las Vegas, down 26.8% in the past year; Miami, down 26.7%; Phoenix, down 25%; Los Angeles, down 23.1%; San Diego, down 22.4%; San Francisco, down 22.1%; Tampa, down 20.4%; Detroit, down 18%; Minneapolis, down 15.5%; Washington, down 14.8%; Chicago, down 9.3%; New York, down 8.4%; Atlanta, down 7.5%; Cleveland, down 6.8%; Boston, down 6.4%; Seattle, down 4.9%; Denver and Portland, both down 4.7%; Dallas, down 3.4%; and Charlotte, down 0.1%.

The closest to Eugene in this report is Portland and as can be seen, nationwide, we are encountering a lower level in Oregon of price drop than the majority of the United States. As the old saying goes, "things could always be worse," we could be in Las Vegas.