Faltering Pace as Home Prices Climb Back

-- Home Textiles Today, 3/7/2010 12:00:00 AM

New York —

Even though the fourth quarter of 2009 saw a modest general gain in home prices across the United States, the momentum that had gathered in the third quarter seemed to have dwindled, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Prices Indices.

“As measured by prices, the housing market is definitely in better shape than it was this time last year, as the pace of deterioration has stabilized for now, said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P. “However, the rate of improvement seen during the summer of 2009 has not been sustained.”

The data is derived from home price reports from a 10-city index, a 20-city index, and a national index covering all nine U.S. Census divisions.

The national data, seasonally adjusted, showed a Q4 gain of just 0.3% over Q3, showing marked cooling from the 2.2% uptick recorded in Q3 over Q2. Further, while full year readings were somewhat encouraging, one figure from December 2009 — a national Index reading of 136.09 — resulted in a Q4 2009 year-over-year decline of 2.5% from Q4 2008.

“Nationally, home prices are back to their Summer 2003 levels,” the report noted.