The Housing Bust Has Not Affected Some Markets
It seems some of the real estate markets in the U.S. have not at all been affected by the housing crash. There are indeed certain metro areas which are getting costlier with every passing day. According to Standard & Poor’s monthly index, cities including Seattle, Portland and Dallas are the only metropolitan regions that have witnessed an upsurge in the housing prices during February 2007. Standard & Poor’s index considers home prices in 20 major metropolitan areas around the U.S. including Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco and Detroit.
According to this index, the prices in Seattle have increased by 10.6 percent while in Portland, Oregon, the prices were up by 7.7 percent. At the same time, home prices in the remaining markets decreased by 1 percent.
According to Rhonda Rosenberg, who is the spokeswoman for the King County Housing Authority, low income families are going to be worst affected by this situation. They can now neither realize their dream of buying a new home, nor can they afford the rental values as the property prices increase. She feels that working people are unable to afford homeownership due to raising costs.
According to Andrew Leventis, who is an economist with the federal agency, the probable reason for an increase in prices might be due to increase in the second home sales. However, he is concerned about the affect of prices on first time buyers and young families.
David Blitzer, managing director of Standard & Poor, feels that the housing situation is still not better. According to him, housing crash might have got delayed in these metropolitan cities that are seeing increased home prices and this cannot be considered as a favorable situation.
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