The Real Estate Market in February 2010
February 10, 2010
Stable? Improving? Tepid? Lackluster? Optimistic? Theses are the mixed messages used to describe the housing market in the past month. And since real estate is local, all the adjectives are accurate depending upon the locale and the type of housing. The coastal areas of California such as San Francisco, LA, and San Diego are improving, while inland California continues to suffer. According to the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, one strong positive is that even in cities that showed a decline in value from October to November, the rate of decline compared to 2008 is far slower. Their Ten City and Twenty City indices are down 4.5% and 5.3% respectively, for November compared to 2008. An interesting aspect of the indices is that while there has been overall broad improvement, in November only five cities showed month over month improvement, and four cities – Tampa, Seattle, Charlotte and Las Vegas hit new four year lows. Conversely, Denver, Dallas, San Francisco and San Diego have values that are higher than one year ago. It is also important to note that November is a seasonal month, and when seasonably adjusted the numbers improved.
To view the city indices and related article, visit http://www.standardandpoors.com/indices/sp-case-shiller-home-price-indices/en/us/?indexId=spusa-cashpidff–p-us—-#
For more information contact Greg Dwyer at Bank of America at 617-899-4399
