U.S. home prices fell percent during the first quarter. It is the sharpest drop in two decades which points to a much longer and worsening housing slump.

Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index reading dropped 14.1 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period last year. This is the lowest since it started the quarterly index in 1988. The index is a broader composite of single-family home price indices for the nine U.S. Census divisions and is calculated quarterly.

Prices nationwide are at levels not seen since the third quarter of 2004, according to Maureen Maitland, an S&P vice president. However, the index is still up 60 percent against 2000.

“There are very few silver linings that one can see in the data. Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path,” said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P’s index committee.

Nineteen of the 20 metro areas showed annual declines, with 15 of them marked record lows. Price drops in six metro areas were more than 20 percent.

Las Vegas had the worst performance in March, falling 25.9 percent from a year earlier, followed by Miami and Phoenix. Only Charlotte, North Carolina, increase by less than 1 percent over the previous year.

Last week, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight reported a home prices drop of 3.1 percent in the first quarter, the largest drop in its 17-year history and only the second quarter of price declines recorded.