© 2024 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
KCUR 89.3 will be intermittently broadcasting on low power this week to allow for tower repairs. Streaming is still available online at KCUR.org and on smart devices.

Home Prices Haven't 'Turned,' But Some Edged Up As Quarter Ended

A "sold" sign earlier this year in Palo Alto, Calif.
Paul Sakuma
/
AP

Home prices slipped further in the first quarter, according to the widely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. It reports that:

"The national composite fell by 2.0% in the first quarter of 2012 and was down 1.9% versus the first quarter of 2011. The 10- and 20-City Composites posted respective annual returns of -2.8% and -2.6% in March 2012. Month-over-month, their changes were minimal; average home prices in the 10-City Composite fell by 0.1% compared to February and the 20-City remained basically unchanged in March over February. However, with these latest data, all three composites still posted their lowest levels since the housing crisis began in mid-2006."

"Housing prices have not turned," David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices, says in the report.

Still, there is this modestly good news buried in the numbers: While prices overall were down for the quarter and were below the already low-levels of a year earlier, in 12 cities they did tick up in March from February, as the quarter ended. Those places:

-- Charlotte, up 1.2 percent from February.

-- Cleveland, up 0.4 percent

-- Dallas, up 1.6 percent.

-- Denver, up 1.5 percent.

-- Los Angeles, up 0.1 percent.

-- Miami, up 0.9 percent.

-- Phoenix, up 2.2 percent.

-- San Diego, up 0.4 percent.

-- San Francisco, up 1 percent.

-- Seattle, up 1.7 percent.

-- Tampa, up 1.3 percent.

-- Washington, D.C., up 1 percent.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and award-winning podcasts.
Your donation helps keep nonprofit journalism free and available for everyone.