Texas continued to lead the pack in the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Index.

Home prices in the Lone Star State remained strong in the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. Though the indices do not track Houston, prices were very encouraging in Dallas, where they rose 7.5 percent year-over-year in December, the most recent month of data.

It was another month in what has become common for Texas’ housing market – slow, incremental growth that lacks the spectacle of other housing markets but outpaces most others; case in point, Dallas’ yearly growth was the third best in the nation.

Modest Price Increases Nationwide

Nationwide, the situation was a modest (albeit positive) one:

• Both the 10- and 20-City Composites, which track most of the nation’s largest housing markets, rose 4.3 and 4.5 percent year-over-year, respectively; both increases are stronger than November’s yearly increases.
• Both composites were even positive monthly, rising 0.1 percent from November to December.
• Overall, nine cities saw higher monthly figures, compared with six seeing negative figures and five seeing flat numbers.

Blitzer – “Housing Recovery is Faltering”

David M. Blitzer, the managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said that despite December’s price increases, other sectors of housing are showing clear weakness.

“The housing recovery is faltering,” Blitzer said. “While prices and sales of existing homes are close to normal, construction and new home sales remain weak. Before the current business cycle, any time housing starts were at their current level of about one million at annual rates, the economy was in a recession. The softness in housing is despite favorable conditions elsewhere in the economy: strong job growth, a declining unemployment rate, continued low interest rates and positive consumer confidence.”