Home Prices Rose 1.2% in July – Case-Shiller Report
September 29, 2009 – Home prices nationwide improved yet again during the month of July, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, but still remain down double digits from a year ago.
According to the Case-Shiller index, home prices in the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas rose 1.2% in July compared with June, considerably better than the 0.5% monthly rise that economists had forecasted.
Only two of the 20 cities tracked by S&P report reported monthly declines — the struggling housing market of Las Vegas, which reported a 1.1% monthly drop and the relatively unscathed Seattle market, which fell a moderate 0.1%.
“The rate of annual decline in home price values to continues to decelerate and we now to be witnessing some sustained monthly increase across many of the markets,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee. ” These figures continue to support an indication of stabilization in nation real estate values.”
From a year ago, housing prices nationwide remain down 13.3%, but three of the 20 tracked individual markets are getting close to breaking even. Boston’s housing market is down 4.9% from a year ago, while Cleveland is down 1.3% from a year ago and Dallas is down 1.6% from a year ago. Both Cleveland and Dallas were never heavily impacted by the nationwide housing bust, so it’s no surprise they would be among the first to recover.
The nation’s worst housing markets still remain way down from a year ago. Las Vegas home prices are down 31.4% from a year ago, while Phoenix is down 28.5% during the same period. Phoenix was the worst performing housing market for several months. Detroit, which was negatively impacted by the two U.S. auto-maker bankruptcies, saw housing prices fall 24.6% from a year ago.
The Case-Shiller home price index is reported in a two-month lag to the rest of the housing market data that Wall Street gets every month, but it’s considered a good indicator by Wall Street of when tops and bottoms occur in real estate values.
Homebuilder stocks such as Hovnanian (HOV: 4.03, 0, 0%), KB Home (KBH: 17.17, 0, 0%) and D.R. Horton (DHI: 11.86, 0, 0%) were slightly higher as of late morning, while the broader market was lower.
