Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Real Estate Market Update

The most accurate gauge of home values, in my opinion, is the S&P/Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices measures the residential housing market, tracking changes in the value of the residential real estate market in 20 metropolitan regions across the United States. These indices use the repeat sales pricing technique to measure housing markets. First developed by Karl Case and Robert Shiller, this methodology collects data on single-family home re-sales, capturing re-sold sale prices to form sale pairs. This index family consists of 20 regional indices and two composite indices as aggregates of the regions. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are calculated monthly and published with a two month lag. New index levels are released at 9am Eastern Standard Time on the last Tuesday of every month.

The study only does research on single family homes, NOT condos or townhouses. Below is a story from REUTERS news on today's report that was released. Keep in mind that when you are reading the report, there are still a tremendous amount of opportunities in South Florida's real estate market due to the exceptional prices and historically low interest rates.

Home prices accelerated to a record pace in the fourth quarter of 2007, with prices plunging 8.9 percent last year, according to a national home price index released on Tuesday. The quarterly drop in prices of existing single-family homes quickened to 5.4 percent in the final three months of last year from a 1.8 percent drop in the third quarter. Miami, remained the weakest market, reporting a double-digit annual decline of 17.5 percent, followed by Las Vegas and Phoenix at a 15.3 percent drop each. The three cities boasted of some of fastest rising home prices in 2006.

Charlotte, North Carolina, Portland, Oregon and Seattle were the only three metropolitan in the indexes where prices rose in 2007. Seattle, however, came in at only 0.5 percent, an almost flat growth rate.

Amit Bhuta
Real Estate Helper
Kendall Village Homes
(305) 439-3031
www.DadeCountyMLS.com