Captain Rick: The S&P Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 major markets posted a 9.3% rise over the last 12 months. It was the biggest 12-month gain in the index since May 2006, which was just one month after the index showed record-high home prices.
Even with the strong improvement in prices over the last 12 months, the index is still down 28% from the 2006 peak. Perhaps there is more price gain to be made, but conditions for another housing bubble appear to be forming rapidly.
U.S. housing prices increasing at near record pace
Phoenix Arizona showed biggest increase in home prices
The Case-Shiller index showed the biggest increases came in Phoenix, a market hit hard by the bursting of the housing bubble, where prices were 23% higher than a year earlier.
Prices were up more than 10% in half of the markets — San Francisco, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Miami, San Diego and Tampa all posted double-digit percentage gains, and Denver just missed that mark. New York posted the smallest gain, with only a 1.9% rise in prices.
Another housing bubble being fueled by speculation
The housing recovery has been driven by a number of factors, including near record-low mortgage rates, a drop in foreclosures and reduced unemployment, all of which have helped lift both new-home sales as well as sales of previously owned homes. But, most importantly, it has been driven by investors flooding into some markets to buy homes in order to rent them out, outbidding the potential homeowners who want to live in a home. There are a growing number of inexperienced ‘armchair investors’ now buying into the boom … a sign that demand may be peaking,
Where will this end?
Home values are rising at an unsustainable pace. The end of this round of speculation could end up being not much prettier than the last round …possibly worse, in view of the fact that the U.S. economy is crawling along on extremely shaky ground in comparison to its relatively robust health prior to the Great Recession.
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Info from previous reports:
U.S. Debt Crisis: https://atridim.wordpress.com/category/u-s-debt-crisis/
Fiscal Cliff 101: https://atridim.wordpress.com/category/fiscal-cliff-course-101/
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