WHAT?!? Home Sales/Home Prices UP in June & July??? Pending Home Sales ROSE? Is that a New Flower...?

Ok, I admit it--I am known as a "PollyAnna"...glass-half-full, yes I am one of the happy fluffy people.  That does, not, however, mean that I stick my head in the sand, ignore the obvious, or persistently dive head-first into the you-know-what!

The fact is, a big part of my business for the past year has been providing BPOs to banks--which means I have a bird's eye view (not to mention a trusted source of market info) of my local market--and I will tell you what I've been telling my clients, customers, and friends for the past 6 months: 

The Market in Tampa Bay IS Stabilizing

And now we have National statistics to back up my local assessment--we are long past any false upticks due to the homebuyer tax credit by now, and yet:

Home prices up 1% in June

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sept. 1, 2010

and:

Pending home sales rise

WASHINGTON - Sept. 2, 2010

The first reports home price increases due to the tax credit: 

"The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index posted a 1 percent increase in June from May and was up 4.2 percent from a year ago. Home prices nationally were up 4.8 percent in the second quarter compared with the first quarter, largely due to government tax credits of up to $8,000 that caused sales to surge."

Whereas, for future homes sales, a look at those which are pending would be the best indicator of future trends:

The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator, rose 5.2 percent to 79.4 based on contracts signed in July from a downwardly revised 75.5 in June; it's 19.1 percent below July 2009 when it was 98.1. Pending sales data reflects contracts and not closings, which normally occur with a lag time of one or two months.

This is exactly the data which I've been reporting--that for the past 6 months, since the tax credit expired, home sales have been stable and rising, on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.  Some neighborhoods are still rocky, other have been INcreasing in value for the past 12 months.

Email me and I'll be happy to look at YOUR neighborhood!