The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price indexes, a closely watched gauge of U.S. home prices, show declines continued to get steeper in April, with every region surveyed now showing year-over-year drops.

But in what may be a small sign that things are at the brink of a turnaround in some areas, three of the major metropolitan areas studied — while still posting negative annual figures — did show some improvement over the declines reported last month. And eight of the 20 metro areas covered showed home-price growth in April from March.

Boston; Charlotte; Chicago; Cleveland; Dallas; Denver; Portland, Ore.; and Seattle were able to avoid April-over-March price drops, led by 2.9% growth in Cleveland and a 1.1% increase in Dallas. Charlotte and Dallas are the only two metros to have two consecutive months of month-to-month growth.

Miami and Phoenix were the worst performers month-to-month, each with negative returns in excess of 3%.

David M. Blitzer, chairman of Standard & Poor’s index committee, said, “There might be some regional pockets of improvement,” though “on an annual basis the overall numbers continue to decline.” –Donna Kardos

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    Below, see data from the 20 metro areas Case-Shiller tracks, sortable by name, level, and year-over-year change — just click the column headers to re-sort.

    (About the numbers: The Case Shiller indices have a base value of 100 in January 2000. So a current index value of 150 translates to a 50% appreciation rate since January 2000 for a typical home located within the metro market.)

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    Metro Area   April 2008   Change from March   Year-over-year change   
    Atlanta 124.19-0.1%-7.5%
    Boston 158.680.1%-6.4%
    Charlotte 131.820.2%-0.1%
    Chicago 150.350.1%-9.3%
    Cleveland 109.552.9%-6.8%
    Dallas 120.411.1%-3.4%
    Denver 128.490.8%-4.7%
    Detroit 93.79-1.9%-18%
    Las Vegas 165.89-2.0%-26.8%
    Los Angeles 202.52-2.2%-23.1%
    Miami 200.42-4.1%-26.7%
    Minneapolis 131.19-2.2%-15.5%
    New York 193.93-1.3%-8.4%
    Phoenix 161.33-3.4%-25%
    Portland174.870.3%-4.7%
    San Diego180.57-2.6%-22.4%
    San Francisco164.63-2.2%-22.1%
    Seattle179.570.7%-4.9%
    Tampa178.50-2.1%-20.4%
    Washington201.21-1.0%-14.8%
    Source: Standard & Poor’s and FiservData