Average metro Atlanta prices
Peak 2007 to bottom 2012: DOWN 39.5 percent
Bottom 2012 to April 2016: UP 56.8 percent
April 2015 to April 2016: UP 6.5 percent
Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices
Atlanta’s home prices were up an average of 6.5 percent during the past year, better than average gains across the country, according to a much-watched national survey released this morning.
Atlanta’s price hike beat the 5.0 percent gain nationally, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller House Price Index, a calculation based on a three-month average.
Atlanta prices also rose more than the 5.4 percent average for the nation’s 20 largest metro areas. Among those 20, Atlanta was the seventh-strongest increase, said Case-Shiller.
”The housing sector continues to turn in a strong price performance,” says David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones.
The economic fundamentals continue to support the real estate market, he said. “The home price increases reflect the low unemployment rate, low mortgage interest rates, and consumers’ generally positive outlook.”
The national index has risen at a pace of 5 percent or more for six consecutive months, Blitzer said.
Just two metros had double-digit increases: Portland, Or., where prices climbed 12.3 percent, and San Francisco, which and ad 10.7 percent rise. The slowest rise came in Washington, D.C., where prices were up just 1.9 percent over the year.
Housing prices have been rising steadily, if not spectacularly, for nearly four years. But Blitzer warned that the momentum is not irreversible.
“The outlook is not without a lot of uncertainty and some risk,” he said. “Last week’s vote by Great Britain to leave the European Union is the most recent political concern while the U.S. elections in the fall raise uncertainty and will distract home buyers and investors in the coming months.”
Also, when the Case-Shiller data is adjusted to account for seasonal patterns, three cities had lower prices in the current report. Last month, the seasonal adjustment resulted in just one city with a dip, he said.
For the last month, Metro Atlanta’s prices were up 1.3 percent – slightly better than the month before. However, when seasonal patterns are accounted for, prices in Atlanta’s during the last month was just about flat, according to Case-Shiller.
Among the top 20 metros, seven now have higher average prices than before the burst of the housing bubble. Atlanta, where the housing bubble was bigger than most – and the bust more painful – still sees average prices about 5 percent below the peak levels of mid-2007.
Atlanta’s market hit bottom overall in March, 2012. Prices have risen 57 percent since then.
But since hitting bottom, Atlanta’s long, emergence from the morass of the housing burst continues.
An estimated quarter-million homeowners went through foreclosure in metro Atlanta. But the region’s foreclosure rate has been steadily dropped. Last month, it dipped to 0.56 percent in the most recent data, according to a report issued this morning by CoreLogic.
That compares with a rate of 0.75 percent a year ago.
Atlanta’s foreclosure rate has now dipped lower than the national average for several consecutive months. The most recent national rate was 1.03 percent, CoreLogic reported.
The mortgage delinquency rate for Atlanta has also fallen. According to CoreLogic, 2.84 percent of mortgage loans in metro Atlanta were 90 days or more delinquent compared with 3.50 percent for the same period last year.
