Are Housing Prices Stabilizing? After a Period of Off-The-Leash Growth, Price Increases Are Shrinking, Says Case-Shiller

Maybe so, or maybe the market is just taking a breather while the summer heat is on before it grows legs again. According to Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller’s Home Price Index, Dallas has seen the smallest increase in home prices since August of last year. Still, prices are growing, at an albeit slower rate. In fact, all of the MSAs Case-Shiller surveys saw growth from April to May of this year, even beleaguered Detroit.

Regionally, home prices increased 8.6 percent in Dallas from May 2013 to May 2014, and between April and May of this year, the increase was 1.3 percent. That’s a decrease from March to April 2014, during which Dallas saw a 1.6 percent price growth. Nationally, housing prices are up 9.4 percent from May 2013, with a flat month-over-month HPI.

“Home prices rose at their slowest pace since February of last year,” said David M. Blitzer, Index Committee Chairman with S&P. “Housing has been turning in mixed economic numbers in the last few months.”

Interestingly, pricing and sales of existing homes is showing improvement, according to the report, but new home construction and sales are sluggish. I guess builders are still feeling the pinch of an available land shortage, and only time will tell on whether construction will fill the demand gap that is driving potential homebuyers to lease.

See the full report on the S&P/Case-Shiller website.