Portland Ranks 6th in Impressive Index

Portland, Oregon ranks 6^th of the 20 cities tracked by Case Shiller. The index reveals that a dollar invested in the Portland real estate market would be worth $1.47. That is a 47% return on each dollar invested. DC, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, and Boston place among the top five with Washington DC’s impressive 82% return.

California Up in June

An estimated 43,964 new and resale houses and condos were sold statewide last month. That was up 7.3% from 40,965 in May, and down 0.5% from 44,167 for June 2009, according to MDA DataQuick.

California sales for the month of June have varied from a low of 35,202 in 2008 to a peak of 76,669 in 2004, while the average is 50,405. MDA DataQuick’s statistics go back to 1988.

The median price paid for a home last month was $270,000, down 2.9% from $278,000 in May, and up 9.8% from $246,000 for June a year ago. The year-over-year increase was the eighth in a row, following 27 months of year-over-year decline. The bottom of the current cycle was $221,000 in April 2009, the peak was at $484,000 in early 2007.

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San Francisco up 16.2%, SD 10.8%, LA 6%

The San Francisco area had the strongest quarterly performance among metropolitan regions in a closely watched home price index released Tuesday, although other areas and national numbers showed some weakening.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed the San Francisco area – which it defines as the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, Alameda and Contra Costa – up 16.2 percent in the first quarter, compared with the same quarter in 2009.

Other California areas also showed recovery, with San Diego up 10.8 percent and Los Angeles up 6 percent.

“San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles went way up and came way down, so to some extent this is a rebound from the bottom,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee for Standard & Poor’s, which publishes the index.

Schiller Finds 9 Cities on the Rise

Los Angeles posted almost a 1% gain and San Diego posted a .4% gain in month month gains in January on a non-seasonally adjusted basis.

Other cities with year-over-year gains include San Francisco, Las Vegas.

A separate report, released this month by data and analytics company Radar Logic, found that the price per square foot of homes rose in eight of 25 U.S. markets tracked in January compared to the same month a year earlier.

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So Cal Home Sales Rise

Southern California home sales rose in October. Shrinking inventory of homes for sale and government and industry efforts to stoke demand and curtail foreclosures helped prices stabilize. Last month 22,132 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties. That was up 2.8% from 21,539 in September and also up 2.8% from 21,532 a year earlier, according to MDA DataQuick.

Los Angeles Times Declares a Bottom

Southern California median home sales price surged in June with sales volume reached a 30-month high. Prices increased to a new average of $265,000.

From the LA Times:

“Southern California home prices may have finally hit bottom, with median values rising last month for the first significant increase in two years, new data show.”

For the first time in 9 months fewer than half of the sales were foreclosures while the prices rose 6.4% in May.

“I think we can now say with fair degree of confidence the pace of real home price declines has slowed dramatically,” said Los Angeles economist Christopher Thornberg, who was an early predictor of the housing bubble.

“Sales in many higher-cost neighborhoods couldn’t have gotten much lower, so this recent uptick in activity should come as no surprise,” MDA DataQuick President John Walsh said. “The recession and problem mortgages are fueling more high-end distress, hence more high-end bargains.”

The percentage of homes that sold in June for more than $500,000 rose to about 20% of all homes purchased, up from 18% in May.

Additionally only 45% of the homes sold had been foreclosed upon, DataQuick said, the lowest percentage since July 2008. Foreclosures peaked at 57% of total sales in February.  Escrow closed on a total of 23,262 new and resale houses and condominiums in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego counties last month. That was up 12% from 20,775 in May and up 29% from a year earlier.

Los Angeles County’s median home price in June was $320,000, up from $300,000 in May….In Orange County, the median price went from $410,000 in May to $418,000 in June…The median price in San Diego County rose from $295,000 in May to $314,000 in June.

Forbes Calls L.A. 5th Best City to Buy a Home

Los Angeles is the fifth-best American city to buy a house, Forbes magazine said in a new ranking of U.S. metro areas.

“While the majority of the nation’s housing markets are still working toward a bottom, some cities are boasting fundamentals that make them good places to buy a home now,” Forbes reported this week.

Denver is the best city to buy a home. Phoenix was ranked No. 2, followed by Boston, San Diego and Los Angeles.