Posted by
alfredlester on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 10:30:57 AM
Home prices rose modestly in October, thanks to a flood of buyers seeking to take advantage of the government&S217;s offer of a tax credit, data released Tuesday showed.
The Standard &&8; Poor&S217;s/Case-Shiller home price index, a closely watched measure of the housing markets in 20 metropolitan areas, rose 0.4 percent from September on a seasonally adjusted basis. It was the fifth consecutive month that prices were up.
Underneath this apparent good news were some disquieting signs of deterioration, however.
Seasonal adjustments tend to hide any weakness in the cooler months, when fewer houses are sold. On an unadjusted basis, the index was flat in October.
&S220;We&S217;ve started to see the possibility of either a leveling off of prices for a few months or perhaps a double-dip,&S221; said Maureen Maitland, the vice president for index services at S emergency payday loan.&&8; P.
The Case-Shiller index is down 7.3 percent from October a year ago.
Prices fell or were flat in nine of the 20 cities surveyed in October, the same as in September. But the recovery is beginning to diverge sharply by metro area, Wells Fargo chief economist John Silvia noted.
In the last three months, prices in San Francisco increased at a 25 percent annual rate while Minneapolis was up 17 percent and Los Angeles rose 11 percent. Phoenix, long a laggard, rose 13 percent.
But New York, Portland and Boston were up less than 2 percent.
Home Prices Rose Slightly in October