Home Prices Climb in 87% of U.S. Cities Amid Recovery

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

By Elizabeth Dexheimer - Aug 8, 2013

Prices for single-family homes climbed in 87 percent of U.S. cities in the second quarter as the national housing recovery accelerated amid competition for a limited number of properties on the market.

The median transaction price rose from a year earlier in 142 of 163 metropolitan areas measured, the National Association of Realtors said in a report today. A year earlier, 75 percent of regions had gains.

Values are increasing as homebuyers, encouraged by improving employment, compete for a tight supply of listed properties. At the end of the second quarter, 2.19 million previously owned homes were available for sale, 7.6 percent fewer than a year earlier, according to the Realtors group.

“There continue to be more buyers than sellers, and that is placing pressure on home prices, with multiple bids common in some areas of the country,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said in the report.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-08/home-prices-rise-in-87-of-u-s-cities-amid-recovery.html

[tabasco]

1. This is great news

I'm sure it will be shouted down on DU.

[closeupready]

2. Yes to your last sentence.

Just like McDonald's can NEVER do anything correct, etc.

[earthside]

3. You bet.

Wages and benefits are stagnant or declining, but housing prices are up.

Real good for working class Americans, uh?

Oh, and how do you think those new housing construction jobs are going to pay ... if the mega-homebuilder corporations even start building again.

[tabasco]

7. Well, since you asked,

I am a working class American, with a home for sale. It was built in 1930, so no "mega homebuilder corporations" are involved. LOL. You see, the increased value of the home is money in my pocket.

Do you think a shitty real estate market with no sales and values in the tank is good for working class Americans?

Please explain.

[Fringe]

21. Exactly!

Someone loses and someone wins. That's the market.

[Fringe]

20. Someone is buying these houses...

It's supply and demand. People get into a frenzy and buy at the wrong times.

I owned a house once. It was a money pit, and I sold it. I don't think I will ever want to own another house.

[PSPS]

16. Actually, it is not good news

Rising home prices that can be accounted for by rising wages would be good news, indeed. But, absent the rising income, this just means we're getting bubbly again.

[Katashi_itto]

28. Agree, this is an artifical bubble. Mainly driven by investors. Real people are getting left out

[Soundman]

30. Winner, winner chicken dinner.

This great news will soon be followed by interest rates rise as home sales heat up. Oddly enough nothing will have changed accept bank profits.

[Katashi_itto]

31. Absolutely right. They have destroyed the ability of real people to buy

so they are using their ill-gotten gains to inflate the market again.

[olddad56]

24. are people on DU not allows to have opinions that differ from yours?

[msongs]

4. gee just a few months ago it was 'market depressed by flood of foreclosures' nt

[brooklynite]

5. DIdn't someone here recently describe our Cities as "dsytopian"?

[Gregorian]

6. Come on, we can reinflate this bubble.

HOUSES ARE A UTILITY. Not an investment.

[geek tragedy]

8. "not an investment' sez who?

Anything that you buy with the intent of selling one day is an investment.

[Gregorian]

10. Not a car.

It's also a utility.

My point is twofold. First, housing prices would have to continue going up forever, for it to be the kind of investment we're talking about. That is, one where you make money. Second, not just Americans, but most of the people on the planet have been using their houses as if they were a credit card.

People seem to have lost the connection between what we're doing, and how we're doing it. Economies depend upon resources. Resources are fixed. Growth is not natural or normal. The whole thing is based on an error in thinking we can just keep growing and increasing our wealth forever.

I don't expect many people to get this. It's threatening to them. Especially to conservatives. They like being in control. The problem is, there really are limits.

[geek tragedy]

11. housing prices tend to rise at the same rate of inflation, maybe a little bit more.

They're an investment, but not a get rich quick scheme.

If your home isn't worth more than what you paid for it when it comes time to sell, you made a bad investment.

[Gregorian]

12. Only if there's growth.

[geek tragedy]

13. Over time, the economy always grows nt

[bhikkhu]

26. Well, the world is finite

I am an optimist in the medium term, and have been fortunate enough to hold on to some assets (barely) through the recession. I'm happy to see some value returning, and betting on recovery through the next few years.

But it is deluded to think that there is no end to growth.

[Beer Swiller]

18. THANK YOU!

Houses are supposed to be places where we live, the shelter as in food, clothing and shelter.

[KT2000]

9. this is being fueled

by financial firms buying the houses for cash. They will rent to houses out and bundle the rentals into the same kind of instruments that caused the collapse in the first place. They tanked the housing market and now they are cleaning up on the depressed prices. So wrong.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/10/21/investors-single-family-homes/1634689/

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wall-street-landlords-20130801,0,4294406.story

[tabasco]

14. Yes, it would be better if foreclosed homes were left to rot

Good point.

[jtuck004]

15. But snark will make it better, right? The point is that we are becoming a rental society, and

the wealth and independence that came with home ownership is going down the river, along with the lives of millions of Americans, as they become the lackeys to a growing class of property owners, in a land where our home ownership is now at the levels of 1996, but with 50 million more people.

Which is precisely what our ancestors fled from as they looked for independence in this county. They got it through genocide and exploitation, and have left the people who came later to rot, much like some of these homes were, and still are.

It's not better if the homes are left to rot, but it's even worse when people are.

[adirondacker]

22. Thanks for stating that. nt

[Katashi_itto]

29. You seriously havent a clue what your talking about. Your good at snarks though.

[Mojorabbit]

23. THere was an article about it in the paper recently. Investment firms are buying them up

and bundling them just like they did mortgages before.

[jtuck004]

17. The Housing Shell Game: Prices Up, Ownership Down

by MIKE WHITNEY

Why are housing prices rising when the homeownership rate has dropped to its lowest level in 18 years?
Five Star Institute economist Mark Lieberman’s has done considerable research on the homeownership rate by combing through the US Census Bureau report. He found that:

“The number of housing units held off the market in the first quarter though was 7,609,000 up from 7,299,000 in the fourth quarter and but down from 7,633,000 a year ago.” (“Homeownership Rate Drops to 18-Year Low” DS News)

Can you believe it? So the banks are keeping more than 7 million homes off the market to reduce listings, create the illusion of ”scarcity”, and push up prices. And just look at the numbers. They haven’t budged in the last year, which means that things aren’t really getting better at all. It’s a complete hoax, in fact, it might be the biggest charade of all time.
...
This is why housing prices are going up, because corrupt, carpetbagging public officials and their price-fixing allies at the Fed have moved heaven and earth to do the banks’ bidding and to make sure they don’t lose one red cent on their garbage stockpile of distressed homes.
...

Here

It may be that "recovery" is in the eye of the asset holder, and not necessarily in everyone's best interest.

[Beer Swiller]

19. Great. Another bubble.

Capitalism is fraud.

[Safetykitten]

25. Hey! We are buying as fast as we can! Your pals...Wall Street.

[olddots]

27. woopdy fucking doo

they raised some prices but nobody is buying except 1%er speculators and scam artist flippers . yeah it's good news =for mobsters