Nationwide released data from its August 2009 house price index showing that house prices rose 1.6% from the previous month.  This is the fourth consecutive month in which house prices have risen in the UK, bringing the year-on-year change to –2.7%.
Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s Chief Economist, said low interest rates are behind the recent rise (emphasis [...]

The data from the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for June 2009 were released at 9AM ET, showing that house prices in the US increased for the second consecutive month.  Last month marked the first month since July 2006 that prices rose in the US. While prices should rise during the spring and summer, the most [...]

UK house prices have now risen for three months consecutively and four months in five according to statistics released by Nationwide Building Society this morning. The rise for July was a very robust 1.3% month-on-month, which translates into almost 17% on an annualized basis. Clearly, housing is doing very well during this summer selling season.
While [...]

Yesterday, I mentioned that the housing data, while generally positive (the first uptick nationally in 34 months), contained some negative news due to seasonality.
The crux of the problem lies in the strong tendency for house prices to increase in the spring and summer because that is when demand for housing is greatest. Add in [...]

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for May 2009 were released today and the data showed a marked contrast to previous months. Fully 14 of 20 markets showed an increase in home prices in that month, making it the first time since July 2006 that the overall index has risen month-to-month. On a year-over-year basis, home [...]

This is an astonishing video in China with Hugh Hendry, the money manager who is bearish on China who I profiled earlier this month.  In it, he shows us building after building after building – all of them massive and all of them empty.  And you see yet dozens of others still in construction in [...]

When we saw the Case-Shiller data for April on Tuesday, I noted that New York was the most overpriced metro area in the Composite-20 as prices there were still 70% above January 2000 levels.  This is changing fast.  Bloomberg reports:
Manhattan apartment prices dropped for the first time since 2002 in the second quarter as the [...]

The S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices for April 2009 were released today.  The Composite-10 and Composite-20 indices showed a 18.0% and 18.1% decline respectively, making the data less bad than in the previous month.  Nevertheless, there is still considerable weakness, particularly in former bubble cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Miami.  There, prices have been [...]

On the same day that the worst economic growth numbers in the U.K. in 51 years, we also get some news that the British economy may be stabilising. Well, at least house prices seem to be stabilising as Nationwide reported a 0.9% increase in house prices in UK June.  That is the third rise in [...]

Actually, I lied.  He really is not that bullish at all.  But he does sound relatively upbeat by comparison to 5 months ago.
I have seen Whitney Tilson of T2 Partners a lot in the media of late.  The two most recent appearances are with Tech Ticker where he talked about house prices and with the [...]