Study: Austin homes prices up 8.6%

Austin Business Journal

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Home prices in Texas -- especially in Austin -- have defied the overall downward trend seen in other U.S. housing markets, according to a study by First American LoanPerformance.

In the Austin market, home prices increased 8.62 percent over the 12-month period ending in October. Other Texas markets included in the study's top 30 statistical areas include Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, which increased 3.92 percent; Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, up 4.52 percent; and San Antonio, with a 7.89 percent increase.

LoanPerformance Home Price Index reports 12-month home price changes by the top 30 core-based statistical areas as of October 2007.

Home prices fell in 21 states over the past year, according to the index, which provides monthly home price indices and median sales prices covering 7,451 ZIP codes, 956 core-based statistic areas, and 662 counties in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

"The real estate market continues to exhibit ongoing declines in a number of key residential property markets," says Damien Weldon, vice president, collateral and prepayment analytics for First American LoanPerformance. "The overall picture continues to be mixed, however."

The LoanPerformance HPI incorporates more than 30 years of repeat sales transactions, representing more than 45 million observations, sourced from the property information database owned by its parent company, First American CoreLogic Inc.

First American LoanPerformance is a subsidiary of First American CoreLogic, and a member of The First American Corp. (NYSE:FAF) family of companies.

On a related note, for the 10th month in a row home prices across the U.S. dropped, according to a different study.

The record 6.7 percent monthly drop in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index was the largest drop since April 1991. The index tracks prices of existing single-family homes in 10 metropolitan areas compared to a year earlier.

A broader index of 20 metro areas fell 6.1 percent. Among the 20 metropolitan areas used in the broader index, 11 posted record monthly declines and all 20 declined in October compared to September.

In the year-over-year comparison, Miami posted the largest decline among the 20 markets with prices -- down 12.4 percent in October compared with the same month last year. Tampa, Fla., was the second-worst performing city with declines of 11.8 percent. Besides those two cities, Phoenix, Detroit, Las Vegas and San Diego also posted double-digit year-over-year declines.

Only three areas included in the study -- Charlotte, N.C., Portland, Ore., and Seattle -- posted year-over-year home price appreciation in October. Charlotte posted the largest gain at 4.3 percent.