Washington-area home values ticked up from June to July and year-over-year values declined at a slower pace for the sixth straight month, according to data released Tuesday.
The area also led the nation in the amount of home appreciation since 2000 for the second straight month, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index, which measures home prices in 20 major metropolitan areas.
“The summer was really very good,” said local real estate agent Donna Evers. “The difficulty with 2007 and 2008 is that we had financial crises that occurred in August and September. I think we’re going to be able to avoid that this year, which means that the situation will keep on improving.”
Nationally, the year-over-year pace of declineslowed in July, though home values still slipped. All 20 metro areas showed improvement from June to July.
David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard and Poor’s, said the trends were pointing toward stabilization, but he urged caution.
“We do need to be cautious in coming months to assess whether the housing market will weather the expiration of the Federal First-Time Buyer’s Tax Credit in November, anticipated higher unemployment rates and a possible increase in foreclosures,” he said.
Indeed, many sales have been driven by the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers, and the real estate industry has been lobbying Congress to extend it past the current Nov. 30 deadline.
Nevertheless, Stephen Fuller, director of George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis, said the local market has started to recover.
“Prices are stabilizing,” he said. “Northern Virginia basically has bottomed out.”
The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices track the value of single-family housing in the United States. The indices have a base value of 100 for January 2000; a current value of 150 translates to a 50 percent appreciation for a typical home.
