“(Moneywatch) Even as U.S. economic growth stutters, the housing market is showing real signs of a rebound: home prices are up, pending sales and constructing activity is rising, and the number of existing homes for sale continues to drop. The big question, amid slow job growth and stagnant personal income: Will it last?
If the housing upswing does continue, it will likely because of the trend’s unique characteristics, with investors, more than consumers, sustaining momentum.
The indicators of a housing recovery are both plentiful and nationwide. According to the most recent Fiserv Case-Shiller data, the real estate market during the spring and summer this year was the strongest since the peak of the housing bubble in 2006. Other green shoots for housing:
- Fiserv reports that average U.S. home prices have increased 1.2 percent since summer 2011
- Home prices were up in more than one-half of the 384 metro area markets in the second quarter of 2012
- Many of the biggest price increases have been in markets hardest hit by the housing crash, including Phoenix (14.5 percent), Detroit (11.6 percent) and Miami (6.9 percent)
- Home prices in October rose 6.3 percent over a year ago, according to research fire CoreLogic
- Pending sales of existing homes were up 5.2 percent in October, according to the National Association of Realtors
- Overall housing inventory is down 22 percent year-over-year and probably at the lowest level since the early 2000s, according to DeptofNumbers.com
Despite the positive signals, analysts are tempering their enthusiasm, nothing that the recovery in housing is only relative to the calamity that befell the real estate sector during the financial crisis…”
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