Increased Home Prices in Some Cities

A number of American cities posted increased home prices during the second quarter.

This represents the first quarterly improvement since 2006. The numbers are encouraging, although overall prices are still substantially lower than a year ago.Among those cities reported as showing improvement, in the Case-Shiller 20 city index –

Cleveland - 4.2%
San Francisco - 3.8%
Minneapolis - 3.1%
Washington DC - 2.8%
Dallas - 2.7%
Boston - 2.6%
Denver - 2.5%
San Diego 1.6%
Atlanta - 1.5%

Also tracked as showing some improvement were Los Angeles, Chicago and Phoenix with 1.1% improvement. Portland, Charlotte, Miami, New York, and Seattle logged minor gains.

Likely helping the housing markets is the government economic stimulus effort, including an $8,000 first-time homebuyers tax credit. Many first time or entry-level buyers have been helped by the program.In some metropolitan housing markets, feeding frenzies, multiple offers, and bidding wars are taking place while home-buyers become concerned the market bottom has been reached, and prices may go up once again.There is an article at money.cnn.com which goes into depth about these latest numbers. It can be accessed as follows:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/25/real_estate/June_CaseShiller/index.htm?postversion=2009082510