Home prices in California show strong, unexpected gains in January
Los Angeles Times
By Alejandro Lazo
... A national index of home prices rose unexpectedly in January, with California cities posting strong gains, but some experts warned that the nation's struggling housing market could be headed for another fall.
The closely watched Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 metropolitan areas rose 0.3% from December on a seasonally adjusted basis. That marked eight consecutive months of home values improving. The index also was down just 0.7% from the same month last year, the nearest that the year-over-year reading has come to positive territory in three years...
... Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, said Southern California was showing strength because it was one of the earliest markets to get hit and is rebounding now before other areas.
"We fell first, we fell deeply and we didn't overbuild the way other parts of the country did," he said.
"And if you look at the long-term horizon, the amount of housing built relative to population was less than other places, and it is still really hard to build new houses here," he said. That means the chances of recovering sooner are good, Green said...