Home Prices in U.S. Cities Increase by Most in Seven Years

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

By Shobhana Chandra - Sep 24, 2013

Home prices in 20 U.S. cities rose in the 12 months through July by the most in more than seven years, helping boost owner equity.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities increased 12.4 percent from July 2012, matching the median projection of 31 economists surveyed by Bloomberg and the biggest year-to-year advance since February 2006, a report from the group showed today in New York. On a month-to-month basis, price appreciation slowed.

Gains in home and stock values are contributing to increases in household wealth that are helping bolster consumer spending, the biggest part of the economy. Nonetheless, the appreciation in property values may cool over the rest of the year as mortgage rates close to a two-year high temper demand.

Price increases “will start to slow down to a fairly sustainable pace,” said Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York and the best home-price forecaster over the past two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “The increase in mortgage rates will slow things down a bit at the margin. As the economy does better, people will be in a better position to weather the higher rates.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-24/home-prices-in-u-s-cities-rose-in-july-by-most-in-seven-years.html

[Purveyor]

1. RELATED: Soros to Goldman Poised to Win on Crisis-Era Housing Bet

By Zachary Tracer - Sep 24, 2013

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and billionaire George Soros are poised for gains from a housing bet placed in the depths of the financial crisis.

Essent Group Ltd., the Bermuda-based mortgage insurer that raised $500 million from a group including those backers in 2009, filed last week to sell shares in the first initial public offering of a home-loan guarantor in almost two decades.

The industry is rebounding from record homeowner defaults that triggered payouts, forced almost half the companies out of the business and pushed some of the biggest survivors to the brink of default. With property prices now rising at the fastest pace since 2006 and the government reducing its role backing home loans, firms that sold policies before housing collapsed -- Radian Group Inc. and MGIC Investment Corp. -- are attracting new investors to replace capital lost in the slump.

“We still think it’s the best way to play the housing recovery,” Jack Micenko, an analyst at Susquehanna International Group LLP in New York, said of mortgage insurers.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-24/soros-to-goldman-poised-to-win-on-crisis-era-housing-bet.html

[Sunlei]

2. #1 investment most congress members is real estate. guess they bought enough cheap foreclosures.

banks own enough properties. now it's flipping time $$$$bonanza on the backs of the homeless.

[Purveyor]

3. Heard a report just this morning that many of the institutional buyers of these foreclosed homes

are even trying to sell them. They are choosing to fix them up and renting them out instead.

[darkangel218]

4. Another real estate bubble forming..

What's new..