S&P/Case-Shiller® July Home-Price Index

The S&P/Case Shiller® composite index for the month of July was released yesterday.

"'With July’s data we are seeing not only anticipated monthly increases, but some fairly broad improvement in the annual rates of change in home prices,' says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices. 'This is still a seasonal period of stronger demand for houses, so monthly price increases are expected and were seen in 17 of the 20 cities. The exceptions were Las Vegas and Phoenix where prices fell, while Denver was flat. The better news is that 14 of 20 cities and both Composites saw their annual rates of change improve in July.'

'While we have now seen four consecutive months of generally increasing prices, we do know that we are still far from a sustained recovery. Eighteen of the 20 cities and both Composites are showing that home prices are still below where they were a year ago. The 10-City Composite is down 3.7% and the 20-City is down 4.1% compared to July 2010. Continued increases in home prices through the end of the year and better annual results must materialize before we can confirm a housing market recovery.'"

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 9/26/2011

Please post your local house search updates, MLS finds, on-topic ideas, and links here.

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 9/19/2011

Please post your local house search updates, MLS finds, on-topic ideas, and links here.

Apparently, U.S. home builder's confidence worsened in September, going from gloomy to slightly more gloomy.

Northern Virginia's housing inventory is at 8,109 available listings as of September 16th, which are lower still than last year at this time when there were 8,842 available houses. It could be shaping up to be an interesting spring market for sellers if inventory doesn't improve.

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 9/12/2011

Please post your local house search updates, MLS finds, on-topic ideas, and links here.

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 9/6/2011

Happy back-to-work day, all. Wall Street should have stayed closed or something. Is anyone out there taking advantage of these low interest rates?

Please post your local house search updates, MLS finds, on-topic ideas, and links here.

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 9/6/2011

Well, we're in for a rainy week and not much is newsworthy, except for hanging onto the last straws of summer and trying not to think about the work that lies ahead.

Here are some random stories from snooping on the MLS today:

My old flipper friend just listed her house (she's been trying to get out from under it for years), and the neighbor listed another for 85K less on the same day. The asking price of the latter is the selling price in 2003.

This old Victorian gave me pause. I saw it and thought of another dark-windowed house in a children's novel (A Wrinkle in Time), and then I read the description. I wonder if other people's departed relatives are a selling point. I've seen many small lots with cemeteries in the countryside, of course, it's just that usually the people living in the house know who they are. Or rather were.

And in case you missed it over the weekend, a ranking member of the U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises finally came up with a solution to our foreclosure problem: "Waters also wants to help by putting more pressure on the big banks to help with mortgages. 'If they don't come up with loan modifications and keep people in their homes that they've worked so hard for, we're going to tax them out of business.'"

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 9/1/2011

Please post your local house search updates, MLS finds, on-topic ideas, and links here.