Sales climb 12% and Prices climb 2%

[David Krulac]

according to the latest figures from Case-Shiller Index, and housing prices are the highest in seven years. And every city in the index showed an increase. All good news.

But there is another side to the news also.

For one the CS only reports on 20 cities, though these are the major cities of the country, there is a lot of real estate and a lot of real estate investors not in those 20 cities. Call it Fly Over country, call it Rust Belt, call it small town America, call it what ever you want but its not in the CS.

And when this is reported in the national media the 20 city part of the report is not stated. They report housing priced climbed 20% as if that is a given everywhere. Even in the CS some places were higher than 20% and some were considerably lower. San Francisco was at 23.9%, Las Vegas 22.3%, and
Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, Seattle and Tampa showed double-digit gains.

But Dallas increased 7.4%; Washington, D.C., 7.2%; Cleveland, 4.8%; and New York, at 3.2%.

And even with the housing price increases, we are still 26% below peak prices.