July 2012

Surge in Home Building Indicates Recovery

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012 at 4:57pm. 281 Views, 0 Comments.

A surge in homebuilding pushed construction spending up 0.9% in May, the largest amount in five months, further indication that the housing sector is slowly recovering.

Construction spending reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $830 billion – 11.3% above the 12-year low hit in February of last year, according to numbers released Monday by the Commerce Department.

The boost was also well above the Barclays Capital estimation of an 0.1% increase and consensus of 0.2%. Continuing the good news, April's rise was revised higher to 0.6% month over month from 0.3% previously. Construction spending now stands 7% higher than last May.

May's increase in spending was driven by a strong 1.6% gain in private spending, with both residential spending…

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Home Prices Rise for Third Consecutive Month

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012 at 12:41pm. 234 Views, 0 Comments.

U.S. home prices year-over-year rose 2% in May while also increasing 1.8% from April, CoreLogic reported in its May home price index.

The Santa Ana, Calif.-based research firm said when excluding distressed home sales, prices actually shot up 2.7% over year-ago levels and rose 2.3% from April. Figures from May show home prices nationwide increasing for the third consecutive month in a row.

"The recent upward trend in U.S. home prices is an encouraging signal that we may be seeing a bottoming of the housing down cycle," said Anand Nallathambi, president and chief executive officer of CoreLogic. "Tighter inventory is contributing to broad, but modest, price gains nationwide and more significant gains in the harder-hit markets, like Phoenix."

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