SALT LAKE CITY — The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported Tuesday that home prices slid nationwide in the first quarter of 2010, and Utah home prices were in even worse shape than the vast majority of the national housing stock.
Utah home prices in the first quarter of 2010 were down 8.9 percent compared with the same time period of 2009 and were down 3.3 percent from the final quarter of 2009, according to the federal agency.
Utah ranked 47th among states for price appreciation, ahead of only Michigan, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona.
Nationwide, home prices fell 3.1 percent from the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010.
The housing agency's numbers were calculated using mortgages and refinances underwritten by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That amounts to about 40 percent of the U.S. housing stock, according to Tuesday's report.
Like the state as a whole, populous regions within Utah saw decreases in the first quarter of 2010. Among them, St. George housing prices fell by the greatest margin, at 17.45 percent.
Salt Lake City fell in the middle range, with a decrease of 9.91 percent compared with the first quarter of 2009. However, those prices are up 23.04 percent from the same quarter five years ago.
Elsewhere, the Ogden-Clearfield region saw a slightly smaller decrease than Salt Lake's, at 6.2 percent, and the Provo-Orem area experienced a slightly larger decrease, at 13.3 percent.
e-mail: rpalmer@desnews.com