US home prices edge higher in August

WASHINGTON: US home prices ticked slightly higher in August from a month earlier as the sick housing market showed no clear sign of recovery five years after a price bubble burst, data showed Tuesday.

Prices on single-family homes rose 0.2 percent from July in 20 major metropolitan areas, but were down 3.8 percent from August 2010, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite index.

The incremental monthly increase in prices illustrated the depth of the housing slump more than two years after the severe recession officially ended.

Average home prices across the United States are only back to the levels where they were in mid-2003, S&P said.

Measured from their June/July 2006 peaks through August 2011, the 20-City index has fallen 30.8 percent.

"In August, we see a modest glimmer of hope," said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices.

Blitzer noted that the index was almost four percent above its crisis low of March 2011.

The crippled housing market remains a key hurdle for recovery in the world's largest economy.

President Barack Obama on Monday unveiled measures to help people whose homes are now worth less than what they owe on them to refinance their mortgages at lower interest rates.

Obama chose Las Vegas, the epicenter of the real estate crash, to roll out the stopgap plan amid high unemployment stuck at 9.1 percent. Nevada has the highest unemployment of any US state, at 13.4 percent.

According to the S&P/Case-Shiller report, Las Vegas again was the one city that posted a new index low in August 2011, with prices 59.5 percent below their 2006 all-time peak.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011