Housing News Digest, January 31

US home prices fell again in November: Case-Shiller
WASHINGTON — Prices for US homes fell again in November, a key index showed Tuesday, failing to respond to record low mortgage loan rates.

Prices fell from October by a seasonally adjusted 0.7 percent, according to the S&P-Case-Shiller; index for 20 top metropolitan areas, after an identical 0.7 percent drop the previous month.

Racial Separation in America's Neighborhoods, 1890-2010
Following every census enumeration since 1890, the Census Bureau has released neighborhood-level data on race. This report presents an analysis of the data from 13 consecutive census administrations on the long-run path of racial segregation across American cities. This report extends our previous work on segregation, by incorporating information from the 2010 census, made available to the public in early 2011 (Cutler, Glaeser, and Vigdor, 1999; and Glaeser and Vigdor, 2003). America’s cities have been shaped over decades, and even the most recent data need historical perspective to be understood (Logan and Stults, 2011). The main findings follow:


Parker: Creating an urban option to mortgages
Phoenix-based Alliance Residential is so bullish on the Denver real estate market that it's investing a bundle of dough in apartment buildings aimed at dwellers who could most likely afford to buy an abode.

"We're targeting aging boomers, young couples, young families and professional individuals — a lot of people who could qualify to buy a home but they don't know if they will be in Colorado for more than three years,"

Small strides expected in commercial real estate market

Expect another year of gradual improvement in the local commercial real estate market in 2012, but outside forces such as Department of Defense cuts could affect some sectors of the market, according to a forecast by Grubb & Ellis/Quantum Commercial Group, a Colorado Springs brokerage.

“You’re not going to see anything skyrocket,” said Dale Stamp, Grubb & Ellis/Quantum Commercial president. “I’m think you’re going to see slow improvements.”

Some see real estate bright spots
EAGLE COUNTY, Colorado — It's easy to see continued grim news in the county's real estate market. And there's plenty to be glum about. But there may be some signs of a slow rebound.

The good news is the number of sales last year. While sales in 2011 are at the same levels as sales in the late 1990s, it's a marked improvement from 2009, when sales dropped more than 40 percent from the previous year.