Home Prices Fell 3.9% in January From Prior Year, FHFA Says

U.S. home prices fell 3.9 percent in January from a year earlier as the housing market struggled to recover from the worst crash in seven decades, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The drop was led by an 8.6 percent slump in the region that includes Arizona and Nevada, followed by a 5.6 percent retreat in the area that includes Florida, the agency said in a report today. Prices nationwide fell 0.3 percent from December, compared with the 0.2 percent decline that was the average estimate of 17 economists in a Bloomberg survey.