Home Prices Increase in Most U.S. Metropolitan Areas
By Prashant Gopal - Aug 9, 2012 10:27 AM ET
(Corrects number of areas measured in second paragraph.)
Prices for single-family homes climbed in most U.S. cities in the second quarter and values nationally jumped the most since 2006 as real estate markets stabilized.
The median sales price increased from a year earlier in 110 of 147 metropolitan areas measured, the National Association of Realtors said in a report today. In the first quarter, 74 areas had gains.
U.S. housing prices are beginning to lift off the bottom after the worst housing slump since the 1930s as buyers compete for a tight supply of available properties. At the end of June, 2.39 million previously owned homes were available for sale, 24 percent fewer than a year earlier, the Realtors said.
“The turnaround in home prices feels pretty broad,” Celia Chen, a housing economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said yesterday. “But I think there are still risks that home prices will dip a little more before they start appreciating with any consistency,”
One threat to home values is the so-called shadow inventory of delinquent properties that have yet to enter the market. U.S. foreclosure starts rose 6 percent last month from July 2011, Irvine, California-based data provider RealtyTrac Inc. said today.
The national median existing single-family home price was $181,500 in the second quarter, up 7.3 percent from the same period last year, the strongest annual increase since the first quarter of 2006, according to the Realtors group. Distressed homes, including discounted foreclosures and short sales, accounted for 26 percent of second quarter sales, down from 33 percent a year earlier.
more@ Bloomberg.com
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