Twin Cities home-prices climb in September; growth leads nationwide survey
Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal - by Mitch Anderson Staff Writer
Twin Cities home prices continued to rise in September, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index.
Home prices in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market climbed by 1.8 percent during the month. That was tied for the best month-over-month performance among 20 markets nationwide; Detroit prices also climbed by 1.8 percent.
Home prices in the Twin Cities have now risen for five straight months. Overall, the Minneapolis-St. Paul market index stood at 124.96 in September, up 3.1 percent from August.
The Case-Shiller index uses a base value of 100 for January 2000. Therefore, the current index of 109.77 translates to a 9.77 percent appreciation rate since the start of 2000 for a typical home within the Minneapolis market. The index compares matched-price pairs for thousands of single-family homes in each market. Standard & Poor’s and Fiserv Inc. publishes it.
Twin Cities prices are still 11 percent lower than they were in September of last year, owing to the broad economic downturn and a continued glut of housing stock. All 20 cities tracked by the index declined year-over-year to some extent. The steepest declines were in Las Vegas (down 29 percent year-over-year), Phoenix (down 22 percent) and Detroit (down 19 percent).
Nationwide, the index rose 0.3 percent to 144.96 in September, the fourth monthly increase in a row. That's a slower increase than in previous months, leading some analysts to worry that prices may start falling again in the slower winter months.
In a report issued later Tuesday, the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors took issue with the Case-Shiller report, arguing that its inclusion of lender-mediated sales (or sales of foreclosed homes) paints a negatively skewed image of the housing market. The Realtors association's own study, which breaks out traditional, owner-to-owner sales, finds that prices have declined about 10.6 percent since the market's peak three years ago.