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Harney: Home Prices Are Bottoming

  • July 7th 2009

by Mark Wellborn

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Harney: Home Prices Are Bottoming: Figure 1

In his Realty Times column this morning, Kenneth Harney indicated that the bottom for housing prices is near.

Pointing to the latest monthly survey from Case-Shiller and dropping mortgage rates, Harney said that, even though there is a long way to go to a full recovery, these positive signs are indicative of good things ahead.

As we reported last week, the April Case-Shiller report shows that home prices across the 20 metro regions that the index measures declined 18.1 percent from April 2008 to April 2009. That is an improvement over March when the annual national decline was 18.7 percent. The DC metropolitan area fared better than the 20-city average, with an April-to-April annual decline of 16.9 percent.

While the report is not all good news, Harney notes that “even the most bearish researchers” are saying that home prices are almost at bottom:

“Nationally, the Case-Shiller index came in slightly negative for the month overall, as did the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s home purchase price index. But even the most bearish researchers now agree: Prices are bottoming out, even in some of the hardest-hit areas.”

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/harney_home_prices_are_bottoming/1105.

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