Case-Shiller’s Rise Signals Housing Rebound

NEW YORK CITY-A rapidly accelerating recovery it ain’t, yet analysts are taking courage from the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released Tuesday. The indices showed home prices rose over the three months between July and September, marking the sixth consecutive month of increasing prices. As a result, says David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, “it is safe to say that we are now in the midst of a recovery in the housing market.”

The 3.6% year-over-year increase in home prices during the third quarter was the biggest quarterly improvement since Q2 2010, S&P said Tuesday. It also exceeded the median forecast of 29 economists polled by Bloomberg, which projected a 3% Y-O-Y The indices are based on a three-month average, and in Tuesday’s report all three headline composites and 17 of the 20 cities tracked by S&P gained over their levels of a year ago, Blitzer says in a release.