From the wsj.com:
U.S. home prices rose in July from a month earlier with a boost from seasonal demand, but were down from 2010 levels, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home-price indexes.
The housing market has been struggling to recover due to high unemployment, an abundance of foreclosures and tighter mortgage requirements. Home prices rose in April for the first time in eight months, though most of the improvement was believed to reflect the beginning of the spring-summer home-buying season.
“While we have now seen four consecutive months of generally increasing prices, we do know that we are still far from a sustained recovery,” said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P’s index committee. “Continued increases in home prices through the end of the year and better annual results must materialize before we can confirm a housing market recovery.”
Of the 20 major U.S. metropolitan markets, 17 reported higher prices from a month earlier, led by 3.8% growth in Detroit. Las Vegas and Phoenix saw declines of 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively. Denver was unchanged.
However, with the exception of Detroit and Washington, prices were down year-to-year.
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San Diego’s seasonally-adjusted in green (CR’s preference) vs. non-seasonally adjusted in red:
Looks like Case Shiller’s delayed data is telling us what we already knew. We didn’t get much of a spring selling season bounce this year. Let’s see how we do as we move into the fall and winter months. I figure we stay above the 2009 bottom before the start of the next selling season but we might get pretty close to it.
I suppose the wildcard is if some bank comes in with a liquidation plan, but seems like they’d hold out at least until next spring. Ideally the banks would have a bunch of inventory cleaned up and ready to hit the market March 1st 2012.
No inventory = no bounce.
“No inventory = no bounce.”
Indeed, of course you also don’t have free money tax credit enticing the average first time home owner to pay the flippers price.