Housing upturn
Housing upturn proves elusive
The rest of the U.S. economy may be bouncing back, but for the battered housing sector, the hopes of economists and real estate experts are still modest.
“Recovery is probably too strong a word,” First American Funds Chief Economist Keith Hembre says of recent housing data. Call it “stabilization at a lower level.”
Home prices and buying activity are coming back, but only from a disastrous 2009. In the first quarter of 2009, for example, the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller National Home Price index dropped 19 percent from the year before. In the last quarter of 2009 – for which data were released on Feb. 23 – the index was down just 2.5 percent from the year before.
“We’re showing signs of the housing market bottoming,” says Michael Strauss, chief economist at Commonfund. “The bad news is we still have a long way to go.” The widely watched S&P Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price index rose 0.3 percent from November to December. But the figure only increased when adjusted for the winter slowdown. Without a seasonal adjustment, home prices fell 0.2 percent from month to month.
Remeber this: Real Estate is a very local and specific market. Here locally we see things improving faster than on the national or regional level.
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About: Charles: As a Broker Associate, Charlie Wimberly works in tandem with Charles Wimberly to manage the daily activities at CENTURY 21 Wimco Realty, Inc. In 2006 he was elected President of the Century 21 Emerald Coast Broker Council. It consists of 18 companies from Pensacola to Panama City. In this position he must attend biannual meetings with Broker's from councils throughout the Southeast. C21CWjr@aol.com |
