In July, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 major cities rose 1.2 percent from June’s number to a reading of 143.05. Although home prices are still 13.3 percent below last July’s figures a year ago, the study also shows that the annual declines have slowed in all 20 cities for the sixth straight month.
Now, although this is certainly some encouraging news, home prices overall are still down roughly 33% from the numbers from mid-July 2006. So while we are starting to see some improvements in the housing market overall, there’s still a very long way to go before things are completely back.
The report shows that with the exception of the Las Vegas, Detroit, and Seattle areas home prices are rising across the country and I would say that that’s the trend I’m seeing here in the Fort Mill SC and Rock Hill SC area.
Yes, it’s still very much a buyer’s market, but you can slowly see home prices starting to increase ever so slightly. We’ve been very fortunate in that home prices never really took the nose dive experienced by other markets, but home buyer confidence is certainly returning which in turn means homes are selling closer to asking price than previously.
Hopefully this trend will continue, not just in the Fort Mill SC area, but nationwide as well. Home sales has always been a bit of a barometer of how well the economy is doing so the better the home market is, the better off our economy is!
