6 Months of Gains

According to the S&P, home prices have had six straight months of gains. Well, at least for 14 out of 20 principle metro areas. Sorry if you don’t live in an “up” city. But I just report the facts, I don’t make them.

However, home prices are just part of the picture, says the chairman of the S&P index committee. Apparently price gains slowed in November. So while prices are rising, they are slowing.

However, for some major cities in the study, annual figures showed that they had finally reached positive territory. This hasn’t been seen in 2 years in cities like Dallas, Denver, San Diego, and San Francisco.

So what can we take from this information? Prices seem to be stabilizing, but they don’t necessarily indicate a sustainable recovery.

More time is needed to see if the gains that have been achieved can be maintained. We seem to be at pre-housing-bubble levels. Can we achieve the heights we saw previously, this time with a more stable foundation?

That data will be forthcoming after the first quarter stats of 2010 come in.