Home prices retreated 5.9% in the second quarter from a year earlier, the biggest drop since 2009, as foreclosures added to inventories.
Prices declined 0.6% from the previous three months, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Wednesday in a report from Washington. In June, prices retreated 4.3% from a year earlier, while increasing 0.9% from the previous month.
Foreclosures are boosting the supply of properties on the market and undercutting the confidence of homebuyers, sapping demand even as mortgage rates tumble to the lowest in more than half a century. The inventory of homes for sale averaged 3.7 million during the second quarter, the highest since the third quarter of 2010, data from the National Association of Realtors shows. The mortgages on 6.5 million U.S. homes had late payments or were in foreclosure in June, according to Lender Processing Services Inc. in Jacksonville, Fla.
