San Diego and Washington D.C. were the only two major metro areas that experienced positive home price gains in the new year. This indicates a dismal start to the U.S. real estate market overall. Read more about this in the full article from PropertyWire.
The US residential real estate market is experiencing a dismal start to 2011 with only two major metropolitan areas, San Diego and Washington D.C., seeing positive year on year home price gains.
The latest Standard & Poor’s S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price report for January, the leasing measure of US property prices, shows that average home prices are now back to levels last seen in the summer of 2003.
Even in the markets with positive gains, San Diego was up only a slight 0.1%, while Washington D.C. performed the best by recording a 3.6% home price growth rate in January. Eleven cities that posted index level home price lows in December experienced further drops in January.
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Overall, US home prices for the month of January fell 3.1% from year ago levels, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller composite 20 city home price index, a barometer for national home prices. While, the 10 city composite index fell 2% year on year.
‘These data confirm what we have seen with recent housing starts and sales reports. The housing market recession is not yet over, and none of the statistics are indicating any form of sustained recovery,’ said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s.
‘At most, we have seen all statistics bounce along their troughs; at worst, the feared double dip recession may be materializing. A few months ago we defined a double dip for home prices as seeing the 10 and 20 City Composites set new post peak lows,’ he added.
The report added that San Diego and Washington D.C. are the only two metros to have their annual rates remain positive throughout 2010. Every other MSA has either moved back into or has always been in negative territory.
With a January 2011 index level of 99.59, Atlanta has joined Cleveland, Detroit and Las Vegas as markets where average home prices are now below their January 2000 levels. ‘Washington DC appears to be the only market that has weathered the recent storm. While it was up only 0.1% for the month of January, it’s annual rate was a relatively healthy 3.6%, it is still 10.7% above its March 2009 low, and ranks number one among the 20 markets as its average value is almost 85% above its January 2000 level,’ added Blitzer.
This article was republished with permission from PropertyWire.
