Bloomberg News: Home Prices Stagnate
According to Bloomberg News,home prices in 20 U.S. cities have begun to stagnate as consumer confidence has unexpectedly declined.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities dropped 3.5 percent since August of 2010, after decreasing 4.1 percent in the previous year. Additionally, the New York-based Conference Board’s household sentiment index slumped in October (to it’s lowest level since March 2009) to 39.8.
“The small improvement in home prices is a positive, though it hardly changes the story that the housing market will take years to clean up,” said Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto. “Consumer confidence will remain quite fragile as there are still many negatives out there.”
According to U.S. economist Yelena Shulyatyeva, “It’s not good for confidence when people see their main asset, their homes, decline in value. Our best-case scenario is we’ll muddle through.”
The housing marketing is still sputtering at attempts to gain speed since the official end of the recession in 2009, and sales of previously owned homes fell 3 percent in September from the prior month, according to the NAR (National Association of Realtors).
