Palm Beach, Fla.-area home prices slide in 3Q.

Byline: Linda Rawls

Dec. 1--Home prices in Palm Beach County took their first quarterly plunge in nearly a decade, a government agency said Thursday.

The change in home prices from July through September entered the minus column for the first time since 1997, falling 0.5 percent from the second quarter of this year, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said.

That's particularly startling when you consider that OFHEO reported area home prices were still flying high in the second quarter, with a 21 percent increase. The housing office's quarterly index tracks sales of the same property over time.

OFHEO's Housing Price Index is the second report this week to pile on evidence the housing market has boomed out in search of a bottom. The Florida Association of Realtors on Tuesday reported that the median…