Dallas-area home prices turn positive in Case-Shiller index 8:31 AM CT
09:05 AM CST on Tuesday, January 26, 2010

By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
stevebrown@dallasnews.com
Dallas-area home prices turned positive for the first time in more than two years in the closely-watched Case-Shiller Home Price Index.

Residential values in the Dallas area were up 1.4 percent in November from a year earlier – the best performance of the 20 cities tracked in the monthly survey, which was released on Tuesday.

Prices were down 5.3 percent for all the cities in the index from a year ago.

“Looking at the annual figures, four markets – Dallas, Denver, San Diego and San Francisco – finally entered positive territory, something we haven’t really seen in at least two years,” Standard & Poor’s David M. Blitzer said Tuesday in the report.

Other major U.S. home markets weren’t so lucky. Charlotte, Las Vegas, Seattle and Tampa all hit new low points in the survey.

And Dallas-area home prices fell by 0.6 percent on a monthly basis in November from October, Case-Shiller said.

“On balance, while these data do show that home prices are far more stable than they were a year ago, there is no clear sign of a sustained, broad-based recovery,” Blitzer said.

Still, the Dallas numbers are in line with a string of recent reports that show residential values in the area are leveling off.

For all of 2009, median home sales prices in North Texas were unchanged from 2008 levels, according to statistics from the North Texas Real Estate Information System.

And other reports show slight gains in home prices in the Dallas area.

Dallas home values bottomed out in the Case-Shiller last March when prices were down 5.6 percent on an annual basis.

Until the latest report, the last time the index was positive for Dallas was in September 2007 when annual values were up 0.5 percent.

Case-Shiller tracks the prices of typical single-family homes located in each metropolitan area. The index does not include condominiums and townhouses. It only covers pre-owned properties – no new construction.

The Case-Shiller researchers compare sales of specific properties over time