Tag Archives: Home Prices

Home prices ticked up modestly over the first quarter this year, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Wednesday. The agency recorded a 0.6 percent increase on a seasonally adjusted basis for its home price index, with prices rising 0.5 percent year-over-year. The index registered a 1.3 percent decline over the last four quarters. Purchase-only house prices went up 0.5 percent year-over-year. Inflation-adjusted prices for homes fell some 2.6 percent over the last year. The home price index rose over the first quarter in 30 states.

Things are looking up in California. Pending-home sales are continuing to rise on an annual basis; median prices are rising; and equity sales are starting to make up a larger portion of total sales, according to the California Association of Realtors. However, despite the year-over-year gains, April's pending home sales demonstrated a decline from March. Pending-home sales include contract signings but not closings. The index is based on 2008 contract signings with an index score of 100 equaling the average amount of contracts signed per month in 2008. The pending-home sales index for March was revised to 138.9.

New homes sales rose 3.3 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 343,000, the Commerce Department and HUD said jointly Wednesday. Sales for March were revised upward from 328,000 to 332,000. Economists had expected the report to show a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 335,000 new home sales in April. New home sales in April were up 9.9 percent from April 2011, the seventh straight month of year-over-year increases. The increase came despite survey results that showed new home shoppers had fallen.

Continuing a four-month trend ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô one that has also prevailed in nine of the past 10 consecutive months ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô single-family home sales in Massachusetts rose year-over-year in April, according to The Warren Group, a New England real estate analytics firm. However, single-family home prices reversed a seven-month downward drift, rising 1.1 percent. The median sales price for single-family homes in Massachusetts now stands at $275,000. On the other hand, the year-to-date median price is $264,900, which is 1 percent lower than the year-to-date price in April of last year, according to The Warren Group.

Existing-home sales rose to 4.62 million at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in April from a downwardly revised March rate of 4.47 million, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. Economists had forecast the April sales pace would be 4.66 million. The median price of an existing home climbed 10 percent to $177,400 in April 2011, the strongest year-to-year gain since January 2006. The median price in April reached its highest level since July 2010 when it was $182,100. For-sale homes rose to 2.54 million in April.

In its latest monthly report released Monday, Capital Economics painted a positive picture of the housing market, insisting the market has moved from bottoming-out to recovering. To those wondering whether Capital Economics' positive prophesies are merely a mirage soon to be dispersed much like the short-lived positive movement the market experienced in 2009 and 2010, the analytics firm pointed out a substantial difference between what occurred in 2009-2010 and what is occurring today.

Despite some slowdown in housing activity at the end of the first quarter, Fannie Mae projects that home sales will rise and the economy will continue to grow in 2012. Though the first quarter of the year saw substantial housing activity compared to last year, Fannie Mae's internal think tank noticed a drop in momentum late in the quarter. According to the group, this drop may be mirroring many economic indicators and may be a result of the year's unusually warm weather pulling activity slightly forward. Economic growth is at 2.2 percent.

The median sales price for homes sold in April went up 3.2 percent higher than the month before, ticking up to $161,000, according to RE/MAX. The real estate company released a national housing report that tracked a 5.9 percent increase in median sales prices year-over-year. April also marked the third straight month that home prices went up year-over-year after close to two years of declines. Of 53 metro areas surveyed by RE/MAX, 43 reported higher sales prices last month than the year before, an increase from 36 metro areas in March.

The Southern California housing market continues to inch slowly toward recovery with a 5.1 percent increase in home sales year-over-year in April and the first year-over-year price increase reported in 16 months, according to DataQuick, a San Diego-based analytics firm. However, the market still relies heavily on investors as credit remains tight. Previously common mortgage loan products continue to make up a much smaller percentage of the market than they did over the last several years, according to DataQuick.

Uncertainty is the greatest hindrance to the housing recovery today, according to Federal Reserve Governor Elizabeth A. Duke, who speak before the National Association of Realtors on Tuesday. Duke called on policymakers to "move forward with the difficult decisions that will affect the future of the mortgage market," deeming this the "most important solution" to today├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós struggling market. While the economy and the housing market are beginning to see some signs of ripening, Duke pointed out that lending remains tight.