Government: Home Prices Rose 0.3% in July
Home prices rose 0.3 percent from June to July, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said this morning, a promising uptick but one that failed to meet expectations.
Compared with July 2008, home prices were down 4.2 percent, the FHFA said, though that was the smallest decline in a year.
Analysts had expected a 0.5 percent increase from June to July.
Overall, U.S. home prices are down 30 to 40 percent in some areas compared with their high of 2006.
Earlier this month, prominent banking analyst Meredith Whitney said she thought home prices could drop another 25 percent, which puts a lump in the throat of homeowners.
The home-buying market, which has appeared to have stabilized a bit, may now sink back, as the $8,000 first-time home buyers' credit expires at the end of November. Practically, because of the lead time in buying a home, the credit is probably all but expired already.
There is some noise about extending the credit, but you have to ask yourself: When do you stop artificially goosing a market and when do you let it stabilize on its own?
-- Frank Ahrens
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By
Frank Ahrens
|
September 22, 2009; 11:46 AM ET
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| Tags: FHFA, home prices, housing prices
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Posted by: DpnStl | September 23, 2009 8:59 AM | Report abuse
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Two things I think need to be kept in mind about the pricing data referred to from FHFA in addition to what is noted in article; 1. It conflicts with the report from the National Association of REALTORS for existing home sales that indicated home prices actually DECREASED 2.0 percent in July from June....I did a post that includes the facts and a comparison at:
http://realestateconsumernews.com/real-estate-market/us-home-prices-show-modest-0-3-percent-increase-from-june-to-july-according-to-federal-housing-finance-agency/
2. . According to a recent report done by analyst Richard Stoyeck, as few as 1 in 10 of recent home sales are "normal" sales...the rest are distressed or forced sales...while this illustrates we are no where close to the beginning of a housing recovery it could possibly indicate that home price data is artificially low due to the fact distressed and forced sales are making up the bulk of the data....I did a post with Stoyecks report data and analysis included at:
http://realestateconsumernews.com/real-estate-market/has-the-real-estate-market-bottomed-out-is-this-the-recovery-i-dont-think-so/
Calling this a sign of a recovery or housing market stabilization is premature in my opinion...