“We’re really close to being at the bottom again,” said S&P’s Maureen Maitland, describing the latest home price figures released from the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index.
According to that data, home prices fell by 4.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to a year earlier: Read the rest of this entry »
The bursting of the housing bubble and the continued drag it has placed on our overall economy has caused many of us to debate, or at least question, where we stand on the American dream and its relation to homeownership.
Late last year we wrote a post titled, “Is renting the new American dream?” A few months back we wrote about how “…the American dream of home ownership turned into a nightmare of debt and foreclosure” (a quote from David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal). Each of those posts questioned the old ideal that, as Americans, homeownership is something we all should strive for and is a gauge of our overall success. Maybe most of us are better as as renters as opposed to owners.
While the year-over-year numbers continue to remain grim, the pace at which home prices are falling has slowed. According to the Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, the nation’s home prices have actually risen two months in a row ( May and June) and have marked their first quarterly increase in three years. The index, which measures home prices in 20 major U.S. cities, rose 1.4% from May to June and is up 3% from the first quarter.
Past skeptics like real estate analyst Pat Newport seem up on the news. Newport equated the slowing pace of decline from March to April to the busy spring home-buying season. Yet, after several positive reports from different sources, Newport seems ready to cast the home price numbers as more than just a seasonal adjustment: Read the rest of this entry »
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported a 0.9% increase in home prices from April to May. The seasonally-adjusted increase comes after a revised 0.3% decline from the month prior, yet is the third increase of the year so far. According the FHFA’s index, home prices are still down 5.6% on a yearly basis. Home prices remain 10.7% below their peak from April 2007.
“Revisions and volatility of the monthly index make it hard to draw any conclusions, but the seasonally-adjusted HPI for the first five months of this year is up 0.3 percent, or 0.7 percent on an annualized basis,” said FHFA Director James Lockhart.
“The crisis cannot end fully until home prices in the U.S. are at least stabilizing.”
-Alan Greenspan, Former Fed Chairman (hat tip: Seeking Alpha)
As we have written before, during the bottoming of an economic downturn there tends to be both a positive and negative way to interpret economic indicators — especially when they pertain to the housing market. The early stages of a recovery tend to showcase statistics that still look bad in the year-over-year term, yet display an improvement from the month prior.
HSH.com's daily blog focuses on the latest developments in the mortgage and housing markets. Our mission is to relate how changes in mortgage rates and housing policy, as well as the latest financial news, impacts consumers, homebuyers and industry insiders alike. Our 30-plus years of experience in the mortgage industry gives us an edge as we break down the latest changes in an ever-changing market.
