Case-Shiller Indexes to 20-Month High

U.S. home prices continued to increase in July, according to ""Case-Shiller,"":http://www.standardandpoors.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobheadername3=MDT-Type&blobcol=urldocumentfile&blobtable=SPComSecureDocument&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3Ddownload.pdf&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobheadername1=content-type&blobwhere=1245341034827&blobheadervalue3=abinary%3B+charset%3DUTF-8&blobnocache=true with its 20-city index up 1.6 percent from June and the 10-city index up 1.5 percent.

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The 10- city index rose to its highest level since November 2010 and the 20-city index to the highest level since October 2010. Prices rose month-month in all of the 20 cities.

Year-year, the 10-city index was up 0.6 percent and the 20-city index rose 1.2 percent. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected the 20 city index to increase 1.7 percent from June and 1.2 percent from July 2011.

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Prices had increased in all 20 cities in May and June. If prices had risen in Detroit in April, this month’s report would have been the fourth consecutive month in which prices rose in all 20 cities.

While the Case-Shiller index showed across-the-board price gains in July, the National Association of Realtors reported the median price of an existing single family home dropped 0.5 percent in July and another 0.2 percent in August.

The prices gains reported by Case-Shiller were led by 3.7 percent gain in Minneapolis, a 3.3 percent increase in Detroit, a 2.7 percent rise in Chicago and 2.6 percent improvement in Atlanta.

Prices rose year-year in 16 of the 20 cities â€" compared with June when prices rose year-year in 13 cities -- led by Phoenix, 16.6 percent, Minneapolis, 6.4 percent, Detroit,6.2 percent, Denver 5.4 percent and Miami, 5.3 percent.

The steepest year-year price drop was in Atlanta, 9.9 percent, followed by New York, 2.6 percent, Las Vegas, 1.0 percent and Chicago, 0.9 percent.

Even with the improvement in April, the 10-city price index is down 30.5 percent from its June 2006 peak and the 20-city index is down 30.0 percent from its July 2006 high point.