San Diego home prices rise for 13th straight month

By Associated Press
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 6:49 a.m.

San Diego home prices increased 12.4 percent in May from a year ago and was the only metro area in the country with 13 months of consecutive increases in home prices, says the latest Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index released today.

San Diego’s increase was the second highest of the 20 metro areas surveyed, with San Francisco taking the top spot with an 18.3 percent increase.

On a monthly basis, San Diego saw its home prices increase 1.1 percent when not seasonally adjusted. Since the spring is one of the busiest times for home selling, Case-Shiller also provides seasonally adjusted numbers. San Diego’s seasonally adjusted number showed a slightly lower increase at 0.6 percent.

On a nationwide level, prices in the 20 metro areas Case-Shiller tracks were up 4.6 percent from May 2009.

Despite the increases, there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about the housing market for the rest of the year.

While prices nationally have improved from the lows hit in April 2009 — San Diego hit its Cash-Shiller low in May 2009 — they’ve essentially been flat for much of the past seven months. According to Case-Shiller’s index, home prices in San Diego are at about the same level they were in June 2003.

Maureen Maitland, vice president of Index Services at Standard & Poor’s, said the end of tax credits and the busiest home-buying season means there is little else to prop up home prices.

“Sure, April and May look good. But you have to look at the trends,â€