Home prices in metro Atlanta hit another post-recession low but slowed their skid in March, while some hopeful signs such as increased sales appeared nationally, according to a widely watched barometer of the housing market.
New housing starts are up considerably and there are other signs of stability, Robert Shiller, who helped develop the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, said in a news conference.
"We have been in a flat place for several years. Now we are showing signs of breaking out of it, but they are signs we have seen in previous years that fizzled," Shiller said as the Case-Shiller report for March was released.
Metro Atlanta prices, however, have been anything but flat of late. The region's price index has been among the worst performers this year and tumbled 17.7 percent in March compared to a year earlier -- by far the steepest drop among the 20 cities tracked. Las Vegas had the next-biggest drop at 7.5 percent, while seven metro regions had year-over-year gains.
Metro Atlanta's index value in the latest Case-Shiller report was 82.53, with 100 representing the average sale price as of January 2000.
Metro Atlanta's index peaked at 136 in mid-2007. But at the current index, a home that sold for $100,000 in 2000 sold for $82,530, on average, in March.
The Case-Shiller index is widely considered to be one of the most reliable measures of home values because it tracks repeat sales, not sales broadly.
The silver lining in the report is that the month-to-month loss between February and March was less than 1 percent, after dropping 2.15 percent between January and February.
Local real estate analyst Steve Palm of Marietta's SmartNumbers believes Case-Shiller is missing the local upturn because of its three-month reporting lag. Sales are up and prices were rising in April and May, though they are still very low, he said.
"There's a lot of pent up demand out there. And new construction was up about 15 percent," he said.
Experts say the biggest culprit in Atlanta's recent slide is the effect of foreclosures and other distress sales that drag down prices.
Georgia has been a top-five state for foreclosures and about half of all home sales in 2011 were foreclosed properties.
Georgia's higher-than- average state unemployment rate left consumers feeling less confident about buying, and lending has been tightened. Some homeowners who want to move are not putting homes on the market to avoid taking a low price.
Home values mean more than how much you could get for your house. They are a key ingredient of the so-called "wealth effect": When the value of assets such as homes and stocks rise, people spend more, boosting the broader economy. But when they drop, spending dries up. A home is the biggest asset many people have, and a drop in value can affect retirement timing or discourage people from moving to pursue jobs.
Metro Atlanta's Case-Shiller index value (100 represents the average sale price in January 2000):
March 2012 82.53
March 2011 100.33
March 2010 103.73
March 2009 105.07
March 2008 124.46
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