Home Prices Show First Quarterly Increase in Three Years

UPDATED at 10 a.m.

Home prices posted their first quarterly gain in three years, according to the widely watched Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller indexes, a figure that suggests the housing crisis may be bottoming.

Home prices rose in each of the indexes' cities, except for overbuilt Las Vegas and depressed Detroit.

They rose 2.8 percent in the Washington D.C. area.

Home prices even managed to tick up 1.1 percent in Phoenix, which is just as overbuilt as Vegas. Almost.

Though home prices were down 15.1 percent in June of this year compared with June 2008, the decline still beat estimates.

The 20-city index beat analysts' forecasts, which predicted the June-to-June drop would be 16.4 percent.

This is a sign that that massive drop in home prices -- which began in 2006 and has shaved 30 percent off prices -- is slowing. Home prices are now at levels not seen since 2003.

-- Frank Ahrens
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