Home prices fall again in January

The bleak news comes as lawmakers are prepping a major push to remake the nation’s housing market. The Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday morning to discuss ways to reform the government’s role in housing.

Later in the day, House Republican will unveil a handful of bills that would begin altering the role of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with the ultimate goal of drastically minimizing the role of the government in housing.

Of the 20 metropolitan markets tracked by the index, only one — Washington, D.C. — grew in January. Only two have reported increases in prices over the last year: San Diego grew “a scant” 0.1 percent since 2010, while D.C. has been the lone outlier, growing 3.6 percent annually. Four cities — Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit and Las Vegas — have seen the home price increases over the last decade completely erased.