Real estate is a dismal business these days. There isn’t really a lot of great news to go around. However, there is a scant glimmer of hope amid the doom and gloom. Believe it or not, home values are increasing. They are for the last few months. There was an increase in costs over June 2010, and home prices are monitored by the Case Shiller Price Index. It’s great to hear even just a little good news about real estate, thinking about what market conditions are. Source for this article – Housing market gets a reprieve as home prices slightly improve by Personal Money Store.
Exactly how are property rates rising?
Standard and Poor’s Case Shiller price index, which tracks real estate activity in 20 cities, has showed a gain in home prices in the second quarter of 2010. There was a gain over the entire second quarter of 2010. Prices increased by 4.4 percent in that time, according to the New York Times. Last quarter, prices had a 2.8 percent drop. The increase is also for the whole year. Second quarter 2010 home prices are up 3.6 percent compared to second quarter of 2009. For July, home prices rose 1 percent over June.
That isn’t the entire picture though
There is a hitch, of course. Home prices may have risen, but sales are lower. The homebuyer tax credit helped to keep sales going. Nevertheless, sales began to fall off once the credit lapsed. Home prices are likely to fall soon, also. Economist Karl Case (for whom the index is named) said that when some of the data was good, a stabilization of financial markets had not occurred yet, as outlined by Bloomberg. Case thinks it could be one more year or so before a more stable market emerges, and begins to grow again.
It might be a whole lot worse
The bottom line is that the homebuyer tax credit gave a temporary, which is to say artificial, boost to house sales, and also home values. True activity in real estate can’t resume until there is not anything keeping activity up or down. However, on the plus side, things are better than they were a year ago.
Bloomberg
bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-31/karl-case-sees-a-lot-of-positive-stuff-in-housing-price-data-tom-keene.html
NY Times
nytimes.com/2010/09/01/business/economy/01econ.html?partner=rss and emc=rss
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