Case-Shiller: U.S. home prices up for third month in July

The most recent data from the widely-followed S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices was made available today. These data from July show house prices in the U.S. increasing for the third month in a row, suggesting that house prices have stabilized. Moreover, the trend was broad-based with only Seattle and Las Vegas showing house price declines in July amongst the top 20 metro areas.

Overall, U.S. house prices are at 2003 levels even before adjusting for inflation. Moreover, as housing is quite seasonal, we will need to see evidence that this trends holds through the slower winter months as well. The Composite-10 Index of the largest U.S. metro areas is still down 12.7% from a year earlier, while the Composite-20 index is down 13.2%.