Case-Shiller Home Price Indices Continue to Improve
July was another good month for home prices with Phoenix and Las Vegas being the only 2 markets that moved backwards (down .1% and .2%, respectively). The 20 market national composite was up .9%. Tampa and Miami were up .8% and 1.2%, respectively.
On the year, the 2 biggest gainers have been Atlanta (up 4.5%) and Detroit (up 5.8%). I guess if the Lions can go 4-0 for the first time in 30 years anything can happen in Detroit.
There doesn’t seem to be any real pattern to the year-to-date results. Most of the Sunbelt areas are down as is the Northwest. The East Coast is generally up and the Mid West is mixed.
The Tampa and Miami indices started moving up in the Fall of 2009 hitting a post bust high of 140 and 149, respectively. If we can get back above those numbers (Current indices are 130 and 141), then we will officially be on the move up again.
To read the report and see the raw numbers, visit the Case/Shiller section of the Standard and Poors sight here. In the press release accompanying the report, S&P makes makes its first mention in 3 months of the declining default rates in its own Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices. This index, published by S&P has been screaming a slow down in mortgage defaults for the past 2 years (see my foreclosure update this month). Even with the mention this month they fail to point out that the first mortgage default rate is now back to the same level as August 2007 while the second mortgage default rate is all the way back to July 2006.
By the way, these are defaults as reported to a credit reporting agency, not foreclosure filings. These rates shouldn't have anything to do with the foreclosure paperwork slow down. It is simply that fewer people are missing mortgage payments. This has got to mean we are close to the end (assuming no other national or global financial catastrophe) of the foreclosure cycle, just as the waning supply of foreclosure inventory would indicate.
