While home prices slow nationwide, they just keep on increasing in our metro area.
Exceeding expectations was the name of the game for home prices in the Texas housing market. In Dallas, home prices in September rose 7.4 percent year-over-year and 0.3 percent from August, according to the just-issued Case-Shiller Home Price Indices from Standard & Poor’s.
Amazingly, S&P does not track home prices in Houston, but Dallas’ numbers are quite consistent with what we’re reported for the Bayour City. Also, that puts Dallas and Texas home prices in stark contrast with the rest of the nation, where home prices almost uniformly slowed down as they headed into fall. Indeed, Charlotte was the only other city to see its annual home price gains increase.
A Slowdown in National Home Prices
Once again, local trends were antithetical to what’s happening on the national scene:
- The 10- and 20-City Composites are up 4.8 and 4.9 percent year-over-year, respectively; that’s down from August’s yearly gains of 5.5 and 5.6 percent, and represent the smallest yearly increase in two years.
- Furthermore, the National Case-Shiller Index was down 0.1 percent from August to September, which was the first monthly decrease for the index since Nov. 2013.
- Eighteen of the 20 cities that S&P tracks reported slower annual gains from August to September.
- Finally, as this chart from the Wall Street Journal demonstrates, prices in 2014 are trending 5 percent above 2013; though certainly better than were prices were in 2010 and 2011, that’s below both 2012 and especially 2013.
Blitzer – Housing Outlook “Stable to Slightly Better”
David M. Blitzer, the managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, put the current housing market into perspective: “Other housing statistics paint a mixed to slightly positive picture. Housing starts held above one million at annual rates on gains in single family homes, sales of existing homes are gaining, builders’ sentiment is improving, foreclosures continue to be worked off and mortgage default rates are at pre- crisis levels. With the economy looking better than a year ago, the housing outlook for 2015 is stable to slightly better.”
So in other words, stable – not spectacular, but stable and moving forward.