Home prices continued to increase in the third quarter, a sign that the real estate recovery could be sustainable.
According to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the national composite showed home prices jumped 3.6 percent in the third quarter on a year-over-year basis. Compared the to second quarter, prices were up 2.2 percent.
Meanwhile, The 10- and 20-city composites both saw 0.3 percent gains in September compared to the previous month. Seventeen of the 20 markets measured in the 20-city composite posted positive price improvements.
"Home prices rose in the third quarter, marking the sixth consecutive month of increasing prices," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. "In September’s report all three headline composites and 17 of the 20 cities gained over their levels of a year ago."
Senior economist at 4Cast Sean Incremona told Bloomberg that a stabilization is home sales has helped home prices. He added that it seems as though the market is now climbing out of the hole it dug during the financial crisis.
