Monthly Market Indicators July 2009
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August 2009
August 29, 2009
August 25, 2009
Immobilienpreise - Die Wende ist eingelaeutet.
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Home Market Shows Signs of Life as Declines Slow (Update2) By Kathleen M. Howley and Shobhana Chandra Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- The worst may be over for the U.S. real estate market, according to two gauges of home prices. The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index, which tracks 20 metropolitan areas, declined 15.4 percent in June from a year earlier, the smallest drop since April 2008, the group said today in New York. Nationally, prices fell 6.1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the best performance in a year, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. “It is real and it looks like a turn,” said Karl Case, an economics professor at Wellesley College and co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes, said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. “It’s not going down any more and it’s beginning to come up. That’s very good for the future of this financial problem.” Falling prices and government stimulus efforts have made houses more affordable for first-time buyers, spurring increases in sales that have pared the number of available properties. Gains in housing and stock prices could speed the process of restoring the record loss of wealth that has shackled consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy. About $3.4 trillion worth of U.S. houses are at risk of default because the owners owe more than the market value, according to an Aug. 13 report by First American CoreLogic. The number of so-called underwater properties totaled 15.2 million in the second quarter, or almost one-third, the study by the Santa Ana, California-based data company showed. If prices fall 5 percent, 2.5 million more properties will have negative equity. Surge in Sales National sales of existing homes jumped more than forecast in July to the highest level in almost two years, fueled by a tax credit of as much as $8,000 for first-time buyers. Purchases climbed 7.2 percent to an annual rate of 5.24 million, the most since August 2007, according to an Aug. 21 report by the Chicago-based NAR. The gain was the biggest since records began in 1999. Home prices probably will fall 13 percent in the current quarter compared with the drop of 16 percent from April through June, the National Association of Realtors said in a forecast on its Web site. Price declines may slow to 2 percent in the fourth quarter before gaining 2.3 percent in the first three months of 2010, the Realtors said. “The sharp freefall in prices is over,” said Michelle Meyer, an economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. Home prices measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller index climbed 1.4 percent in June from the previous month, the second consecutive gain and the biggest since June 2005. The FHFA index showed a 0.5 percent increase during June. California Prices California single-family home prices fell 20 percent in July from a year earlier as the sale of foreclosed properties pushed down values, the state Association of Realtors said today in a separate report. The median price for an existing, single-family detached house dropped to $285,480 last month from $355,000 a year earlier, according to the report by the Los Angeles-based group. The July price rose 3.9 percent from June. In Las Vegas, the median home price fell 41 percent from a year earlier in July, according to a report today by research company MDA DataQuick, based in San Diego. Almost 70 percent of the homes that sold during the month had been in foreclosure at some point in the prior year, according to the report. To contact the reporters on this story: Kathleen M. Howley in Boston at [email protected]; Shobhana Chandra in Washington at [email protected] Last Updated: August 25, 2009 16:24 EDT |