For the third month in a row home prices have increased due to a strong spring buying push throughout most of the major cities in the nation.
Released today, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home-price index indicates that home prices increased in June from May in 19 of the 20 cities. Furthermore, another figure shows home prices rose 3.6 percent in the April-June quarter from January-March quarter.
According to David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's Index Committee, "Part of what we're seeing here is seasonal, but not all of it, so this is a pretty thin river of hope."
The Las Vegas and Phoenix metropolitan areas, hit hardest by the housing crisis, reported small seasonal increases while Chicago, Minneapolis Washington and Boston posted the biggest monthly increases.
Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities in Stamford, Ct. said, "Broadly it looks like home prices have flattened out. That's good news. Earlier this year, it had looked like we were looking for another leg down. You would like to see prices to go up, but we take what we can get."
Stanley also pointed out that distressed property values remain depressed which has held down home prices, however, non-distressed home sales are beginning to rise.