Good News For Home Values

 

Home prices in the Case-Shiller 20-City Composite increased 1.6% from June to July. This is the third consecutive month that all 20 cities recorded increases. Year-over-year the 20-city composite index is up 1.2% and 16 of the 20 cities hav...

e seen yearly increases. See the chart to see how good your area is doing.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are published on the last Tuesday of each month at 9:00 am ET. They are constructed to accurately track the price path of typical single-family homes located in each metropolitan area provided.

Unemployment State by State

 

Unemployment rates for August increased in 26 states, decreased in 12 states, and 12 states remained the same from July. Year-over-year 42 states and the District of Columbia posted unemployment rate decreases. From July, the national unemployment rate dropped to 8.1%, and was 1.0% lower than August 2011.

Because Housing and Jobs are so closely related, it is important to watch for changing trends in the Unemployment level.

Home Sales Volume And Prices Are Increasing

  

 

Great News! Existing home sales for August increased 7.8% to 4.82 million homes. This is up from 4.47 million homes in July. This represents the most homes sold since the homebuyer tax credit expired in 2010.

Existing Home Sales is a measu...

re of the selling rate of pre-owned single-family homes, collected by the National Association of Realtors from 650 realtor associations. The data is timely and is used in conjunction with the new home sales release from the Census Bureau. Sales of existing (or pre-owned) houses account for roughly 84% of all houses sold. Sales of new houses account for the other 16%. Simply, the volume of sales indicates housing demand.

 

Real Median Income

 

Real median income decreased 1.5% in 2011 to $50,054, down from $50,831 in 2010. The 2011 real median household income was 8.1 percent lower than in 2007, the year before the most recent recession, and was 8.9 percent lower than the median ...

household income peak that occurred in 1999.

Meanwhile, 46.2 million people were in poverty in 2011, a 15% poverty rate. Though down slightly from 15.1% in 2010, the poverty rate remains high.