Prices going up…maybe?
RISMEDIA, November 25, 2009—U.S. house prices rose modestly in the third quarter of 2009 according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) seasonally adjusted purchase-only house price index (HPI). The HPI, calculated using home sales price information from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-acquired mortgages, was 0.2% higher on a seasonally adjusted basis in the third quarter than in the second quarter of 2009. Over the past year, seasonally adjusted prices fell 3.8% from the third quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2009.
FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for September 2009 was unchanged from August. The monthly change for the July-to-August period was revised to -0.5%, from an initial estimate of -0.3%. “These data provide some evidence of short-term stabilization in housing prices, a likely result of the many ongoing efforts to stabilize markets,” said DeMarco. “Given the headwinds facing markets across the country, including high unemployment rates and continued high levels of delinquency and foreclosures, the longer-term view remains uncertain.”
Unlike the FHFA purchase-only index, FHFA’s all-transactions house price index, which includes data from mortgages used for both home purchases and refinancings, fell over the latest quarter. The index declined 2.4% in the latest quarter and 4.1% over the four-quarter period.
For more information, visit www.fhfa.gov
Now what this means to us is we may have finally stabilzed the housing market here in Arizona. Some people still talk about the “hidden” inventory of forclosed homes but we have not seen the evidence of what that means to us.
Months ago I wrote a blog post about “how do you know when we’re hit the bottom” and the point was nobody can absolutley mark this until the prices have increased for several months and of course that means you would missed the bottom.
If you’re thinking about buying a home, you may want to think about making that purchase in the next 6 months or you may end up asking “How did I miss the bottom” and “When am I paying more then I could have”. For more information about our market feel free to contact me directly and I would be happy to help you understant what all the micro-markets are doing here in Phoenix.
Jay and Lynn Otlewski
623.362.3060
