10 Cities Projecting Home Value Increases Through 2013

10 cities poised for growth through 2013Nationwide, the U.S. housing market is showing signs of recovery. Home prices are rising as demand for homes outweighs existing home supply in many metropolitan regions.

As is customary in real estate, though, the degrees to which home values change vary by area.

In some U.S. markets, the housing recovery is outpacing the national average. In other markets, it lags. In an effort to measure the changes, CNNMoney has named the 10 U.S. housing markets in which home prices may rise the fastest.

The list is stuffed with small- to mid-size cities, most of which have experienced huge price drops since the housing market’s peak in 2007. The cities are gems, however, for the right type of home buyer. This may include real estate investors, first-time buyers, move-up buyers, and even parents with children in need of “college housing”.

As listed by CNNMoney, the 10 cities in which home values are rising fastest are :

  1. Madera, CA (Down 53.1% from peak; Forecast 21.5% gain through 2013)
  2. Medford, OR (Down 37.1% from peak; Forecast 20.1% gain through 2013)
  3. Yuma, AZ (Down 37.4% from peak; Forecast 16.7% gain through 2013)
  4. Corvallis, OR (Down 11.4% from peak; Forecast 13.2% gain through 2013)
  5. Eugene, OR (Down 21.2% from peak; Forecast 12.4% gain through 2013)
  6. Olympia, WA (Down 26.3% from peak; Forecast 11.3% gain through 2013)
  7. Boise, ID (Down 36.9% from peak; Forecast 11.0% gain through 2013)
  8. Billings, MT (Down 3.0% from peak; Forecast 10.1% gain through 2013)
  9. Lewiston, ID (Down 7.5% from peak; Forecast 10.0% gain through 2013)
  10. Sante Fe, NM (Down 17.1% from peak; Forecast 10.0% gain through 2013)

These 10 cities are more diverse in their make-up than their geography. All ten can be found in the western half of the United States. However, whereas some cities are expected to excel as a result of proximity of universities — Eugene and Corvallis, for example — others are expected to excel for economic reasons.

This includes cities such as Yuma, which is in a Foreign Trade Zone.

Real estate remains a local market, though, and even within these ten cities, there will exist neighborhoods in which growth exceed national averages, and areas in which growth falls behind.

For accurate, real-time real estate data , be sure to speak with a real estate professional.

Phoenix Leads Annual Home Price Gains, According To Case-Shiller Index

Case-Shiller Index

Standard & Poors released its March 2012 Case-Shiller Index last week. The index is meant to measure changes in home prices from month-to-month, and from year-to-year, in select U.S. cities.

According to the report, home values rose in 12 of the Case-Shiller Index’s 20 tracked markets, and one market remained unchanged.

Of the Case-Shiller markets, Phoenix, Arizona posted the largest one-year gain, climbing 6.1 percent. Atlanta, Georgia posted the largest one-year loss. Values falling more than seventeen percent there year-over-year.

Overall, the Case-Shiller Index was relatively unchanged in March as compared to the month prior, but down nearly 3 percent on an annual basis. Nationwide, says Standard & Poor’s, home values are back to the levels of late-2002.

Don’t be overly concerned, however. Though widely-cited, the Case-Shiller Index is a flawed and misleading metric. It’s methodology almost guarantees it.

The first flaw in the Case-Shiller Index is its limited geography. Despite there being more than 3,100 municipalities nationwide, the Case-Shiller Index tracks just 20 of them. They’re not the 20 largest ones, either. Houston, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Jose are specifically excluded from the Case-Shiller Index and each is among the Top 10 Most Populous Cities in the United States.

Minneapolis (#48) and Tampa (#55), by contrast, are included.

The Case-Shiller Index’s second flaw is that only tracks the sales of single-family, detached homes. Sales of condominiums and multi-unit homes carry no weight in the index whatsoever — even in cities such as Chicago and New York in which condos can account for a large percentage of the overall real estate market.

And, lastly, when the Case-Shiller Index is published, it’s published on a two-month delay. Buyers and sellers don’t need housing data from two months ago — they need data from today. The Case-Shiller Index tells us what housing was, in other words. It doesn’t tell us how housing is

Buyers and sellers need real-time, actionable information. You can’t get that from the flawed Case-Shiller Index. For more accurate, relevant real estate data, talk to your real estate professional instead.