Home prices drop, but at a slower rate
Jun 30, 2009 Make Money Online
S&P/Case-Shiller index down 18.1% year over year, but monthly drop narrows to 0.6% in April.
Home prices continued to tumble in April, falling 18.1% from a year earlier — but the month-over-month change in a closely watched real estate gauge narrowed sharply, indicating that housing markets may be starting to turn.
The 20-city slice of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index recorded a drop of 0.6% from March to April, compared with a 2.2% drop in the prior month. The index has declined every month since July 2006. The 10-city index fell 0.7%.
“The pace of decline in residential real estate slowed in April,” says David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Thirteen of the 20 metro areas also saw improvement in their annual return compared to that of March.”
Not only that but every metro area save one — Charlotte, N.C. — reported improvement in their monthly return compared with March.
“While one month’s data cannot determine if a turnaround has begun, it seems that some stabilization may be appearing in some of the regions,” said Blitzer. “We are entering the seasonally strong period in the housing market, so it will take some time to determine if a recovery is really here.”
Blitzer pointed to some factors that may be lifting the housing markets. For one thing, the stock market bottomed out in March and started a strong recovery. The S&P 500 has gainedabout 37% since then. Consumer confidence has also improved, making house hunters more likely to pull the trigger on deals.
Phoenix, where homes have lost 35.3% of their value over the past 12 months, was the worst performing market over that period. Las Vegas prices plunged 32.2% and San Francisco dropped 28%.
Denver prices fell the least over the last 12 months, down 4.9%, followed by Dallas at 5% and Boston at 7.7%.
Prices in Dallas rose 1.7% between March and April, the largest increase among the 20 cities. Las Vegas prices dropped 3.5%, the biggest decline — which was still narrower than the month before.
Dallas also has suffered the smallest decline from the top of its market, off just 9.6% from its peak in June 2007. The rest of the cities have all suffered double-digit percentage drops from their peaks, with the worst being Phoenix, down 54.1% from June 2006.
—By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com—
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Tags: Home price, Interest Rate, Real Estate, Stock Market
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