Case-Shiller Home Price Index Increases for July

Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased in July by 1.2%. Calculated Risk provides the details. But let's look at the spin on the numbers.

“The worst has passed,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We expect prices to bottom out around the middle of next year and then look for modest price appreciation for the next several years. There is still a tremendous oversupply of homes in most major markets.”

Tremendous oversupply may be understatement especially if financial conglomerate's 'shadow inventory' starts hitting the market.

“In the third quarter we started to see some real signs that the housing market is in fact starting to stabilize,” Stuart Miller, Lennar’s chief executive officer, said on a Sept. 21 conference call. “The sense that now is the time to buy is starting to gain momentum.”

Wow. Check that last line of the quote. WTF!?! We have real unemployment over 16% - who the hell is buying a house who doesn't qualify for the first time buyer tax credit.

Funny, Bloomberg updated their article as I was writing this. They added the following paragraph

Mounting foreclosures present a risk of renewed price declines as more homes are thrown onto the market. Foreclosure filings in August exceeded 300,000 for the sixth straight month, according to data from RealtyTrac Inc. A total of 358,471 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized last month, 18 percent more than a year earlier.

Ya think!

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Check this headline

U.S. Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Fell This Month. Unexpectedly!?!

It is all about JOBS, STUPID.

We need policies that focus on full employment and not re-inflating the bubbles.

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

which is why we need to pull up the graphs, stats ourselves

The MSM has been doing this on almost every indicator out there.

That's why I stopped writing up the weekly initial unemployment claims. The numbers are almost always revised (upward) from the past weeks which makes the current week look like a drop....but that's usually because the numbers were revised.

It's way too noisy of a metric, but of course, every week, the MSM runs the headline as if unemployment is dramatically improving (which it is not).

Only last week could one say we had a drop. But still, need to average it out over 4 weeks, IMHO to get even a hint of a trend.