Miami continues to show strength in the face of a struggling national housing market. According to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, housing prices declined 3.5 percent year-over-year in February, but Miami prices actually appreciated by 0.8 percent. Miami was also one of just three markets tracked by the index to post positive monthly returns in February, as prices rose 0.6 percent, second only to Phoenix’s 1.2 percent monthly gain. [more]

Nearly 41 percent of homeowners with mortgages in Palm Beach County owed more on their mortgages than their homes are worth in the third quarter, according to CoreLogic data cited by the Palm Beach Post, but that’s actually a drop from the 42 percent recorded in the second quarter.

The nationwide average was 22 percent.

Though the slight drop may be encouraging to some, Palm Beach-based housing research firm Metrostudy said the percentage dropped because banks repossessed more homes. [more]

Click image to enlargeThe Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index hit the housing industry with a double dose of bad news in a report released today. Not only did the report show a decline 0.6 percent in September compared to August in the 20 cities covered, but August’s index was downwardly revised to show a price decline in that month as well, despite a previously reported uptick.

The national index rose just 0.1 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2011 from the level recorded in the second quarter. Further the index reported an annual price decline of 3.9 percent, a slight improvement from the second quarter year-over-year decline of 5.8 percent. – Adam Fusfeld [more]

Professors Karl Case and Robert Shiller, founders of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index appeared on Bloomberg TV (see above) to discuss the results of the most recent index, which showed a 3.3 percent decline in housing prices in February. Case said the U.S. housing market has already experienced a so-called “double-dip,” as housing prices plummeted from their 2006 highs, then rebounded briefly due to the homebuyer’s tax credit, and now the market has returned to previous lows. Case cited an “incredible decline” in households — “we’re not building any new houses, and yet vacancy rates are still going up,” he said — as a major area for concern. Meanwhile, Shiller said the 8.8 percent unemployment rate and the difficulties associated with getting financing are plaguing the market.

Only Washington, D.C. was spared from another month of falling home prices as the national average edged closer to 2009 lows, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released today. The February data shows that the 10-city composite fell 2.6 percent, and the 20-city composite was down 3.3 percent, from February 2010, and the 20-city composite has nearly returned to its April 2009 lows — equaling the value of U.S. homes in the summer of 2003. Of the 20 major cities tracked, 16 saw housing price declines of at least 2 percent from last year, with Washington D.C.’s 2.7 percent gain representing the only increase. TRD [more]

While some experts believe the economic fallout from the devastating earthquake in Japan won’t effect the overall global market, Robert Shiller, co-founder of the Case-Shiller Index, which tracks real estate, thinks otherwise. Shiller says in the video above that there is a risk of “high volatility in the markets” following the disaster in Japan.

Yale economist and Case-Shiller Index co-founder Robert Shiller sat down with Fox Business News to discuss recent national housing data and whether there’s reason to feel optimistic about the market. Recent home price increases, along with promising housing starts and home sales data, shows there’s more reason to feel positive about the market, Shiller contended. But Shiller also cautioned against feeling irrationally positive about the recent strong housing data. “We’re still in such turmoil, we don’t know that these numbers mean what they would mean in other times,” Shiller said. Additionally, Shiller argued that government financial incentives like the first-time homebuyer tax credit could be skewing the data. “The worry is that a year from now or two years from now we’re not going to [have those incentives] anymore and people might be thinking that these are failed policies and then we’re in worse trouble,” Shiller said.

Once the excess housing inventory now on the market has been sold, Yale
economist Robert Shiller says another housing bubble is possible.
Shiller, co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index, which measures housing
prices nationwide, said people are speculative enough about buying real
estate that a bubble could happen. Boston is one housing market where
such a bubble might take place, because the city’s property market has
not fallen as drastically as other cities’ housing markets. [more]