Prices Rising - Buy Now For Best Deals!
Home prices in the Minneapolis/St Paul area have seen their third straight month of appreciation. While this is an encouraging sign for the economy, prices are still much lower than they were last year, meaning this is the time to buy.
Mark Reilly of the Mpls/StPaul Business Journal writes, ”
Twin Cities home prices increased in July, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. It was the third consecutive monthly increase for the market, accordingly to the closely watched report of housing prices.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul market had an index 118.68 in July, up 4.6 percent from June. The last time the market had a month-over-month decline in home values was in April.
Twin Cities home prices are still about 17 percent lower than they were a year ago, the result of the economic downturn and a glut of housing brought on by the building boom and large numbers of foreclosures.
The Case-Shiller index uses a base value of 100 for January 2000. Therefore, the current index of 109.77 translates to a 9.77 percent appreciation rate since the start of 2000 for a typical home within the Minneapolis market.
The improvement in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market reflected a broader stabilization across the country. All 20 metro regions tracked by the index showed improvement in the annual rates of decline, and only two markets (Las Vegas and Seattle) saw home prices drop between June and July. Minneapolis was the best-performing market, in terms of month-over-month improvement, with San Francisco following.
“We now seem to be witnessing some sustained monthly increases across many of the markets” said David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s.”
