By Julie Haviv
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The collapse in home prices accelerated to a record pace in the fourth quarter of 2007, with prices plunging 8.9 percent last year, according to a national home price index released on Tuesday.
The quarterly drop in prices of existing single-family homes quickened to 5.4 percent in the final three months of last year from a 1.8 percent drop in the third quarter, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller National U.S. Home Price Index, Standard & Poor's said in a statement. The index has covered all nine U.S. census divisions for the past 20 years.
By comparison, during the 1990-91 housing recession the annual rate bottomed at a 2.8 percent drop.
The composite index of 10 metropolitan areas fell 2.3 percent in December versus November and tumbled 9.8 percent year-over-year, which set a new record.
The composite index for 20 metropolitan areas fell 2.1 percent in December from November and sank 9.1 percent year-over-year.
"We reached a somber year-end for the housing market in 2007," Robert Shiller, Yale University professor and chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC, said in the statement.
Shiller, co-developer of Standard and Poor's S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, said home prices across the nation and in most metro areas are significantly lower than where they were a year ago.
"Wherever you look things look bleak, with 17 of the 20 metro areas reporting annual declines and the remaining three reporting flat or moderate growth rates," he said.
(Reporting by Julie Haviv; Editing by Tom Hals)
