Top 10 fastest sliding residential real estate markets

The top three cities with the fastest-declining property prices: San Diego, Salt Lake City, and Charlotte

While home prices nationwide are continuing to fall — with one recent report from Altos Research suggesting they could lag down to January 2009 levels — Forbes has named the top 10 cities with the fastest declining prices. San Diego snagged the top spot, with median asking prices that have dropped 7.3 percent over the last three months, down to $801, 627 in December from $864,465 in October. Also clocking in as the speediest of the price-choppers were Salt Lake City, Utah, which saw a 6.3 percent decline over three months, and the greater Charlotte, N.C. metro area, whose median residential price dropped 4.4 percent during the same time period. Conspicuously absent from the list were Florida and Nevada cities, which have seen some of the roughest real estate drops since the financial downturn, and New York City.