Another Case-Shiller Report Calls for a Toast: Home Prices Up 4.3% Nationally, 4.6% in Big D

They may be talking Fiscal Cliff in D.C., but you can only say good things about our housing market unless, that is, you live in Chicago. Or New York. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index shows home prices continued to rise in October, with prices up 4.3% annually within the 20-city composite index that S&P scrutinizes for us.

Why October? Because right now, in December, that is the latest month that has all the documentation in and complete from the recording offices across the nation.

S&P says it’s a “sustained recovery” in home prices, and S&P does not fool around. I heard Robert Shiller speak in 2009 and he was Debbie Downer when it came to housing then. S&P is not the only research firm calling for the bubbly. Lender Processing Services says that pre-owned housing prices are now up 4.3% year-over-year in October. In September the index was up 2.1%; it showed a 3.4% annual gain in October.

Poor Chicago and New York were the only cities with negative home price returns for October. September was a better story:

“The five MSA’s where home prices fell in October but not in September were Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Minneapolis and Seattle”

David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, says housing is gaining strength. The strongest performances are in the southwest and California, like Phoenix where homes were selling for a quarter on the dollar just a few years ago.

Over the holidays, I met a delightful Phoenix transplant to our region who told me they had no problem selling their home to move here.

And again, we hear what I have preaching to you since Day One: real estate is a LOCAL story. You have to look at individual markets which show us how high we’ve come from the bottom pits of 2008/2009. And right now, even old, icky stuff is moving in Dallas,

See this treasure? It was vacant for more than 22 years in Oak Lawn Heights, Rob Elmore of the crack Garrey & Elmore team at Keller Williams got six offers in two days and closed in under thirty days… for 98% of list.

Dallas home prices were up 4.6% over October 2011, with a few gyrations there in September and October that I don’t really care about because I know how busy everyone is selling.

Blitzer almost seemed to say that our market is “normal”, like it was pre-steroidal market:

“San Francisco and Phoenix have also rebounded from recent lows by 22.5% and 22.1% with prices comfortably higher than 12 years ago,” said Blitzer. “The smallest recoveries are seen in Boston and New York, two cities in the northeast which suffered smaller losses in the housing bust than the Sunbelt or California.”