U.S. Real Estate Market Looking Up

Written by Dominique Feldman on . Posted in Business/Finance

Despite the fact that the general economic recovery has been extremely sluggish, and the fear of the Fiscal Cliff and then the Dept Crisis that have clouded many horizons, one bright vista in recent months has been the real estate market.  Not only is that a good thing in and of itself, but it's especially positive news considering that the real estate market was one of the first harbingers of the Great Recession.

The November S & P/Case Shiller composite index, which follows 20 metropolitan areas' housing prices, showed a rise of 0.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis, and an overall price increase of 5.5% year-over-year.  That's the biggest gain since August 2006.  What's mpore, November marked the 10th month in a row that the overall prices in the index rose, which beats out the nine-month run in 2009-2010 when prices were boosted by the homeowner tax credit.

The most impressive rise on the index occurred in Phoenix, which saw a huge 22.8 percent yearly gain in prices, while the single downturner was New York City, which fell a rather mild 1.2% from the previous year.

While this hasn't had much impact on the other markets yet, it is at least a positive mark for an economy that has had far too few such occurrences, especially in real estate, for years.