Record decline in government housing index

Home prices nationwide fell 3.1 percent in the first quarter of 2008 compared to one year prior, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, although rapidly declining prices in Florida, as well as in California and Nevada skewed the index’s results. The report marks the greatest drop since the index began in 1991. The government index, which showed price declines in 43 states, is widely considered a more comprehensive reading of the national housing market than he Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index.