As we get further into the year, evidence is cropping up that suggests the housing bust hit rock bottom last winter. Recent data is showing a definite upswing. For the 4th month in a row, the price of single-family homes rose. Eighteen out of 20 cities recorded index gains on the S&P/Case Shiller composite index. The year-over-year gap in housing prices continues to shrink.
According to Case Shiller, it appears that the bottom actually hit in January of this year. Since then, all factors are pointing up. There are four more factors that prove the turnaround: “Housing starts hit a low in the fourth quarter of 2011; residential investment has added to gross domestic product growth for five straight quarters; the FHFA monthly House Price Index in May was up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, higher than inflation; and the pickup in house prices helped lift 700,000 homeowners above water during the first quarter of 2012 while the number of underwater homes fell from 12.1 million properties at the end of 2011 to 11.4 million at the end of the first quarter, according to CoreLogic.”
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