Bob CollinsWe’ve gotten fairly use to the losing streak that the Minneapolis-area housing market has been in, but even so, today’s Case Shiller report, which measures the resale value of homes, is a jaw dropper. Over the last year, the value of homes has dropped 11 percent; that’s the worst in the country.
| City |
Change from a year ago
|
| Washington |
4.1%
|
| Los Angeles |
-2.0%
|
| New York |
-2.8%
|
| Atlanta |
-3.5%
|
| Dallas |
-4.0%
|
| Denver |
-4.1%
|
| Boston |
-4.2%
|
| San Diego |
-4.3%
|
| San Francisco |
-5.5%
|
| Miami |
-5.5%
|
| Las Vegas |
-6.2%
|
| Charlotte |
-6.6%
|
| Cleveland |
-6.7%
|
| Seattle |
-6.9%
|
| Detroit |
-7.3%
|
| Tampa |
-7.7%
|
| Chicago |
-8.4%
|
| Phoenix |
-8.8%
|
| Portland |
-9.1%
|
| Minneapolis |
-11.0%
|
But the half-full perspective is this: 11% is nothing compared to just a few years ago. The drop was larger — 11.8 percent — last summer. But in 2009, there were six straight months in which the year-over-year comparison showed about a 20-percent drop.
So things are improving, right? Maybe.
Minneapolis was one of the bright spots in April home prices compared to March.
| City |
Change from March
|
| Washington |
2.0%
|
| Minneapolis |
1.1%
|
| Atlanta |
0.9%
|
| New York |
0.5%
|
| Phoenix |
0.3%
|
| San Francisco |
0.2%
|
| Miami |
0.0%
|
| Denver |
-0.1%
|
| San Diego |
-0.1%
|
| Seattle |
-0.2%
|
| Chicago |
-0.3%
|
| Cleveland |
-0.4%
|
| Tampa |
-0.6%
|
| Portland |
-0.7%
|
| Las Vegas |
-0.9%
|
| Charlotte |
-0.9%
|
| Boston |
-1.0%
|
| Dallas |
-1.1%
|
| Detroit |
-1.8%
|
| Los Angeles |
-2.0%
|
That broke nine straight months of declining home values locally. The resale price of homes is about where they were in December 2000.
“There’s no sign of any real recovery in housing yet,” Jim O’Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global Inc. in New York, told Bloomberg News. “There won’t be a significant turn until the labor market shows sustained improvement. The level of foreclosures is still high and a lot of people are delinquent on their mortgages.”
