Breaking News:Home Prices Down 2% Nationwide but Up 5% in Boise, Idaho

The Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed a 1.9% drop in home prices in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the first quarter of 2011. This latest composite report shows the lowest home price levels since the peak in 2006. Indices display a 35.1% drop in home prices since that peak in the second quarter of 2006. The cities with biggest drop in March of 2012 were Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York, and Portland. However, some regions around the nation are not experiencing drops but rather seeing significant price increases, such as Boise, Idaho, with a 5.1% increase in home prices for the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same months in 2011. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price indices use only 10 and 20 city composites for their analysis on national home prices. The Federal Housing Financing Agency (FHFA), on the other hand, tracks home prices nationwide through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sales. FHFA is reporting home prices actually increased by 0.6% for the first quarter of 2012, which paints a considerably rosier picture than the Case-Shiller report this month. One could argue therefore, that the Case-Shiller Home Price indices may be missing some important regional price trends by only tracking 10 to 20 U.S. cities when compared with FHFA tracking home sales in nearly every city in every state for their home price index. Here is a FHFA chart showing Home Price Appreciation over the previous 4 quarters: http://www.housingwire.com/sites/default/files/editorial/FHFA%20HPI.png While FHFA showed Hawaii as the state with the biggest year over year gain in home prices, showing a 10.3% increase for the first quarter of 2012; Boise, Idaho appears to be well into its recovery with home prices currently up over 8% Year to Date, and up 13% since April of 2011. According to Mike Turner, CEO of Front Street Brokers in Boise, “The Boise Housing Market is bouncing back faster than I expected. The inventory of homes for sale in Boise is at a 10-year low, and demand for housing is up 26% since bottoming out in 2008. The low supply and high demand is helping to push our home prices back up.” With a handful of cities, and even some entire states, showing robust upturns in home prices compared to the national average, the age-old saying that “real estate is local” appears truer than ever