Housing prices in the United States continued to show weakness in April, as a closely watched monthly survey showed its biggest retreat on record.

Meanwhile, U.S. consumer confidence fell unexpectedly sharply in June, sinking to its lowest level in more than 16 years,

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index for April was off by 15.3% from the same month last year. That marked the biggest drop for the index since record keeping started in 2000.

For April, prices were down for the first time in all 20 U.S. cities included in the index.

Prices in cities in the index have now pulled back to a level not seen since August 2004.

Also in April, the narrower 10-city price index fell by 16.3 per cent, the sharpest drop in the index’s 20-plus year history.

The U.S. housing sector has been rocked by rising mortgage defaults, a glut of houses on the market, slow sales and tumbling prices.

The turmoil in the housing sector combined with rising gasoline and food prices helped to push U.S. consumer confidence to an all time low this month.

The U.S. Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell to 50.4 in June, the lowest since February 1992. The index dropped from 58.1 in May.

Economists had forecast the index to drop to 56.5 for June.

The reading, based on a survey of 5,000 representative U.S. households, suggests “the economy remains stuck in low gear,” said Lynn Franco, the Conference Board’s director of consumer research, in a release.