Bob CollinsThe “housing recovery” is a dud. The latest report on the average resale price of homes in the Minneapolis area shows Minneapolis suffered one of the biggest drops in February, compared to other cities measured in the Case-Shiller index. Only Portland surpassed Minneapolis for one-month flops.
It had been a given that housing prices had bottomed out or were close to it, but this is the fifth straight month of falling prices (these are seasonally un adjusted. Minneapolis resale prices dropped 2.2% in the month, compared to January.
| City |
Change from January
|
| San Diego |
0.6%
|
| Las Vegas |
-0.4%
|
| New York |
-0.4%
|
| Miami |
-0.5%
|
| Washington |
-0.5%
|
| Los Angeles |
-0.7%
|
| San Francisco |
-0.7%
|
| Denver |
-0.8%
|
| Boston |
-1.0%
|
| Charlotte |
-1.0%
|
| Seattle |
-1.1%
|
| Tampa |
-1.2%
|
| Atlanta |
-1.3%
|
| Phoenix |
-1.5%
|
| Detroit |
-1.8%
|
| Dallas |
-1.8%
|
| Chicago |
-2.0%
|
| Cleveland |
-2.1%
|
| Minneapolis |
-2.2%
|
| Portland |
-2.4%
|
The seasonally-adjusted numbers aren’t much prettier. Minneapolis prices dropped almost 1 %. The recent drop in prices puts the average resale price back to what it was here in January 2009.
You can download the data and play with it.
“These data point to a risk that home prices could decline further before experiencing any sustained gains,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P, told the Wall St. Journal. “This simply confirms that the pace of decline is less severe than a year ago. It is too early to say that the housing market is recovering.”
At some point, “it’s not getting worse as fast as it was” isn’t going to be considered good news. We might be there.
