Data released this week showed that home prices are continuing to
improve, with all cities in the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite
recording price gains for the third month in a row.
The Commerce Department also reported that prices of new homes sold in
August soared compared with the month before, rising a record 11.2%.
But if you want to get the best idea of whether a housing market is
starting to improve, you might be better off taking a look at the price
per square foot of properties on the market, as Lew Sichelman writes in
his Realty Q&A column today.
Looking at the price per square foot is a great equalizer because it
adjusts for the mix of homes in an area, he writes. It doesn’t allow for
skewing of the data when more houses are selling at one side of the
price spectrum over the other.
To that end, Lew took a look at data from a valuation services firm and
found that prices on a per-square-foot basis rose in 78 of the country’s
100 most active housing markets over the last three-month period.
Markets including Phoenix; Fort Myers, Fla.; San Jose and Detroit are
rebounding well, he adds.
Read all these home-price stories in this week’s Real Estate pages, plus
read a Home Economics on how you can easily slow down approval of your
FHA mortgage if the property you want doesn’t meet certain requirements.
And discover the 10 best U.S. suburbs to live in.
—
Amy Hoak
, Real Estate writer
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