Dallas-area home prices gain more ground in housing market update

By Steve Brown

Most U.S. metro areas are showing year-over-year gains in prices in the best housing report card since the recession.

In the Dallas area, prices of pre-owned homes were up 3.7 percent in July from a year earlier in the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index released Tuesday.

It was area’s fifth month in a row of increases in the closely watched survey.

“The news on home prices in this report confirms recent good news about housing,” S&P’s David Blitzer said in a public statement. “Single-family housing starts are well ahead of last year’s pace, existing home sales are up, the inventory of homes for sale is down and foreclosure activity is slowing....

“Of course, the North Texas market wasn’t hit nearly as hard during the downturn, so the jump here is probably more significant,” said Dr. Bernard Weinstein, an economist at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business. “Indeed, the average homeowner in North Texas has now recovered all the home equity lost since 2007.

“That augurs well for consumer confidence and local spending as well as the outlook for housing starts.”...