Home Prices Continue Rebound Says Case Shiller Index
Fourth straight month-over-month increase. Year-over-year decline moderates more than expected.
Palm Coast, FL – October 27, 2009 – Standard and Poor’s Case-Schiller Index signals the national housing market continues to stabilize.
By: Ben Rooney (CNNMoney.com staff reporter)
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Home prices rose for the fourth month in a row during August and suffered a smaller-than-expected annual drop, according to a report issued Tuesday.
Prices in the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price index of 20 cities rose a non-seasonally adjusted 1.2% in August. It was the fourth consecutive monthly increase and followed a 1.6% gain in July.
Prices were down 11.3% versus August 2008, but that drop was less severe than expected. Analysts surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast an 11.9% year-over-year drop.
"Broadly speaking, the rate of annual decline in home price values continues to improve" said David Blitzer, chairman of Standard & Poor’s index committee.
While many U.S. markets remain down versus this time last year, the relative rate of decline "has shown some real improvement," Blitzer added.
Home prices improved on an annual basis in 19 of the 20 major metropolitan markets in the survey.
Toby’s Commentary: August prices were up slightly from July in both Miami (+1.1%) and Tampa (.4%), the only two Florida metropolitan areas in the survey. Remember that ALL real estate markets are local. The Palm Coast and Flagler County real estate market is too thin (not enough transactions) to develop a meaningful index. Read GoToby.com’s monthly newsletters for local statistics and analysis.
Become a Member of GoToby.com: Receive email notices of news, rumors, newsletters, and articles. [click here] It’s free.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!