“Home prices increased again in July,”rnDavid M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indicesrnsaid.  “All 20 cities and both Compositesrnwere up on the month for the third time in a row.  Even better, 15 of the 20 cities and bothrnComposites rose over the last year. rnAtlanta remains the weakest city but managed to cut the annual loss tornjust fewer than 10 percent.”</p

“The news on home prices in this report confirmsrnrecent good news about housing.  Singlernfamily housing starts are well ahead of last year’s pace, existing home salesrnare up, the inventory of homes for sale is down and foreclosure activity isrnslowing.  All in all, we are morernoptimistic about housing.  Upbeat trendsrncontinue.  For the third time in a row,rnall 20 cities and both Composites had monthly gains.  Stronger housing numbers are a positivernfactor for other measures including consumer confidence,” Blitzer said.</p

As of July, average home prices acrossrnthe U.S. are back to summer and autumn 2003 levels for the 10-Cithy and 20-CityrnComposites respectively.  Measured from theirrnJune/July 2006 peaks both Composites are down approximately 30 percent and arernup between 7.5 and 8.0 percent from the troughs that occurred earlier thisrnyear.</p

Among the 20 cities, all of which postedrnmonthly gains, fifteen were up more than 1.0 percent.  Miami was up 2.1 percent and was the sole MSArnto have a larger gain in July than in June. rnSan Diego prices were up 1.1 percent, the same as in June while thernother 18 cities and both composites, while having positive monthly numbers,rnwere below the price increases in June.</p

Blitzer said, “Among the cities, Miamirnand Phoenix are both well off their bottoms with positive monthly gains sincernthe end of 2011.  Many of the markets wernfollow have seen some decent recovery from their respective lows – San Franciscornup 20.4 percent, Detroit up 19.7 percent, Phoenix up 17.0 percent, andrnMinneapolis up 16.5 percent, to name the top few.  These were some of the markets that were hitrnthe hardest when the housing bubble burst in 2006.  The 10-City has increased 7.4 percent and thern20-City 7.8 percent since their recent lows. rnThe positive news in both the monthly and annual rates of change in homernprices over the past few months signals a possible recovery in the housingrnmarket.”</p

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Michael Woolfolk, Senior CurrencyrnStrategist, BNY Mellow, York said of the report, “Certainly, the attention isrnpartly focused on housing, though the Fed’s attention is primarily onrnunemployment. But the 1.2 percent rise in the composite price index wasrnmodestly better than expected. And keep in mind we’ve been getting a stream ofrnthird-quarter data that suggests the soft patch in the economy is in the rearrnview mirror. So this should contribute to growth in the third quarter andrnhopefully the fourth quarter.”</p

Mike Gibbs, Co-head of the EquityrnAdvisory Group at Raymond Jones in Memphis, Tennessee  says that the numbers show a continualrnrecovery in the housing market which continues to progress.  “This could have a bigger impact on tradingrnthan other data we’ve seen lately.  Nowrnthat we’ve moved past the FOMC meeting, investors are returning their focus onrnthe economy, which has shown signs of weakness.”</p

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home PricernIndices are constructed to track the price path of single-family homes locatedrnin the subject metropolitan areas.  Eachrnindex combines matched price pairs for thousands of individual houses fromrnarms-length sales data. 

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