The Melbourne-Titusville-Palm Bay area was second for most-depreciating metropolitan areas in the nation in a study of home values, according to the on-line real estate company Zillow.com.

The Space Coast, which was reported to have seen a 14.3 percent drop in the past year, was second only to Sarasota-Bradenton, where the depreciation was 16.4 percent. Zillow looked at 66 metropolitian areas. The Treasure Coast was not among those reviewed.

"The U.S. real estate market still appears quite anemic, at best, with many markets still doing poorly, especially those in South Florida and Southern California," stated Stan Humphries, Zillow's vice president of data and analytics. "The one ray of hope this period is that we've not seen another quarter-over-quarter decline as we've experienced for the past two quarters. The significantly poorer performance of condos and larger single-family homes suggests that prices for these housing sectors are still not in accord with current demand."

Grand Junction, Colorado, at 18.6 percent, had the highest appreciation in the nation, followed by Corvallis, Oregon (11.2 percent) and Charlotte-Rock Hill, North Carolina (9 percent).

The study noted that home buyers who "moved up" in the recent past may have found their new investment has "moved down" over the past year, while neighbors in cozy cottages have held on to their value better in the face of a nationwide decline, according to Zillow's second quarter report.