Philadelphia Real Estate Prices Rebound

Philadelphia Real Estate Prices Rebound

Center City – Alan J. Heavens of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a piece describing how Philadelphia real estate home prices have rebounded in the 2nd quarter of 2011.

Home prices in the second quarter of 2011 rose 3.6 percent nationally after falling 4.1 percent in the first three months of 2011, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Index released August 30, 2011. Nationally prices were 5.9 percent lower than in the second quarter of 2010 –  the final months of the federal home buyers’ tax credit.  April, May, and June are normally peak home buying months and thus an uptick in 2nd quarter prices is not unusual however the economists interviewed in the article felt that once demand weakens at the end of summer, prices will drop as sellers have to make more and greater concessions on price. Here are some additional highlights of the article:

• Prices in 19 of the 20 metropolitan areas covered in the survey were up in June compared to May, however their composite index was down 4.5 percent from June 2010.  Philadelphia is not one of the cities represented in the Case Schiller Index.
• David M. Blitzer, S&P’s index committee chairman concluded that “we are back to regional housing markets, rather than a national housing market, where everything rose and fell together.”
• An analysis Philadelphia’s 2nd quarter home prices by economist Kevin Gillen of Econsult Inc. showed an increase of 0.7 percent from the first three months of the year.
• Gillen described the modest increase as the first since 2008 that wasn’t induced by government action – the federal tax credit that expired at the end of April 2010.
• The Philadelphia region’s prices had fallen a total of 11 percent in the three quarters after the credit’s end, Gillen said.
• The Philadelphia region’s house values have fallen by a cumulative average total of 19 percent since the end of the housing boom in the third quarter of 2007, Gillen said.

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Blog post compliments of CenterCityTeam’s Philadelphia Real Estate Blog

Frank L. DeFazio, Esquire
Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors – Society Hill
530 Walnut Street, Suite 260
Philadelphia, PA 19106
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