Home Prices continue their upward pace
Last week we shined the light on home sales with strong sales being reported in markets across the country. This week we follow up that welcome news with a recent announcement from the folks who publish the Standard & Poor Case Shiller home price composite 20 city index saying that real estate prices increased for the fourth consecutive month ending in August. The housing market continues to show multiple signs of improvement say most economists and many have begun to declare our “Great Recession” over.
The index rose 1.2% in August over July and the strong numbers continue to be driven by low mortgage rates and the $8,000 federal first time home buyer tax credit set to expire in November. It should be noted however that while month to month numbers are showing improvement the S & P Case Shiller index is down 11.3% from a year earlier.
According to numbers quoted by the Wall Street Journal, the markets showing the best improvement in August vs. July include Minneapolis where home prices were up 3.2% and San Francisco where prices were up 2.8%. The markets performing the worst include Las Vegas down 0.3%, Charlotte down 0.4%, and Cleveland down 0.5%.
The only downside to the strong housing numbers is that we need employment to show improvement and with folks getting back to work this will bring consumer confidence up thereby enabling more of a broad based recovery. Given that we depend on a strong housing market for our livelihood we will continue to monitor the news and write about it here.
