Housing Recovery? Not Yet
"Since reaching its recent trough in April 2009, the housing market has really only stabilized at this lower level." Alyson Hurt/NPR hide caption
Home prices rose in May, according to figures released this morning.
A bunch of other housing indicators have been pointing to a weakening housing market lately, so rise in the Case Shiller index — up 1 percent compared with the previous month, and up 5 percent compared with May of '09 — was a bit of a surprise.
Even S&P, which puts out the index, doesn't seem to have much faith in the rise.
The guy who heads S&P's index committee said today:
While May's report on its own looks somewhat positive, a broader look at home price levels over the past year still do not indicate that the housing market is in any form of sustained recovery ... Since reaching its recent trough in April 2009, the housing market has really only stabilized at this lower level.
Anyway. Here's the city-by-city list from Case Shiller:
| Metro Area | May 2010 | Monthly Change | Annual Change | |||
| Atlanta | 107.82 | 2.0% | 1.7% | |||
| Boston | 155.95 | 1.6% | 4.8% | |||
| Charlotte | 116.39 | 0.3% | -2.8% | |||
| Chicago | 121.90 | 1.2% | -1.5% | |||
| Cleveland | 105.85 | 1.0% | 3.7% | |||
| Dallas | 119.93 | 1.5% | 2.9% | |||
| Denver | 128.24 | 0.6% | 3.6% | |||
| Detroit | 68.29 | 0.7% | -2.5% | |||
| Las Vegas | 102.35 | -0.5% | -6.5% | |||
| Los Angeles | 174.67 | 1.7% | 9.7% | |||
| Miami | 146.33 | 0.9% | 1.2% | |||
| Minneapolis | 122.63 | 2.8% | 11.6% | |||
| New York | 170.45 | 0.8% | -0.4% | |||
| Phoenix | 111.00 | 0.9% | 7.2% | |||
| Portland | 147.98 | 1.2% | 0.7% | |||
| San Diego | 163.11 | 1.1% | 12.4% | |||
| San Francisco | 142.16 | 1.7% | 18.3% | |||
| Seattle | 146.82 | 1.2% | -1.4% | |||
| Tampa | 138.29 | 0.9% | -1.5% | |||
| Washington | 182.10 | 1.5% | 7.4% | |||
| Composite | 146.43 | 1.3% | 4.6% | |||
What the numbers mean: In the Case-Shiller index, the median price of a home in January of 2000 is equal to 100. So for the composite index, home prices are more than 40 percent higher than they were in January of 2000. The index is not adjusted for inflation.