Return of Optimism for US Housing

The housing market in many US cities is performing better than recently released national data would suggest, leading some analysts and real estate brokers to express cautious optimism about the prospects for a recovery.

List prices rose in 24 of 26 cities tracked by Altos Research in May, with San Francisco, Washington and San Jose, California, showing the biggest gains.

New York and Las Vegas were the only two cities in the index where prices declined.

A separate index compiled by CoreLogic that tracks prices in 6,507 postal codes rose slightly in April compared with March - the first such increase since a homebuyer tax credit that helped prop up the market expired in April 2010.

And yet interviews with realtors in half a dozen cities around the country paint a different picture. They say that the volume of sales and prices started to strengthen in April and have continued to gain momentum through the first weeks of June.

"In January we were checking to see if the phones were still connected," said Greg Herb, a realtor in south-eastern Pennsylvania.

But after a weak start to the year, pending sales and new inventory grew strongly in May.

No one is suggesting there is a boom under way, only that the market may not be as bad as some recent analysis has suggested....

California, hard hit by the housing crisis, has seen a notable pick-up. "People are still unsure, because there are a lot of mixed signals," said Jim Hamilton, the former head of the California Realtors Association. "But, overall, more buyers are coming into the market."

www.cnbc.com...

Maybe we can all breathe a sigh of relief that now that the housing market is finally showing signs of recovery, that the economy will follow suit and we will soon be back in times of boom and prosperity for all who will seize upon it?

Maybe it's simply artificially induced increases being seen, much like what happens here in Oz with over-inflated housing prices when the market is constantly overstocked?

I know here in Canada
they were saying on the TV
a "record " was set in the first quarter in Toronto
and when I checked the numbers were DOWN
4 percent for new
and
8 percent for used
from the 1st quarter last year.

There is no recovery
wait till the earning reports that are relared to Fukushima start coming back

You should look into who is actually buying those houses.

On TV in australia, there have been reports of Ozzie buying up bargain priced investment homes all round the US.

I doubt they are the only ones either.

American renters may soon be sending there rent money out of the country along with the jobs!

That's the result of the US Govt running around the world with their 'free trade agreements'