Karl E. Case, cofounder of the housing index, said the Boston area continues to be one of the healthiest housing markets nationwide. Even though values here have fallen about 15.3 percent since their peak in September of 2005, that is only about half the decline in values for the 20 cities tracked by the index.
The Boston region’s housing numbers for June represent the third biggest increase in home values for that month nationwide, after Chicago and Minneapolis, according to the index. “Boston has still been a pretty solid market,’’ said Case, a professor emeritus of economics at Wellesley College.
David M. Blitzer, chair of the S&P Indices index committee, said the report shows “mixed signals for recovery in home prices,’’ because no metro region hit new lows in home values and most cities experienced improvement in their annual housing rates. Nationwide, home values increased 3.6 percent in the second quarter of 2011 after dropping 4.1 percent in the first quarter of the year. Values are now down 5.9 percent nationwide over the last year, according to the index.
Edward Glaeser, a Harvard University economist, said the new housing data are another example of the ongoing dips and swells in housing values he foresees taking place over the next few years. Glaeser said he does not expect a dramatic resurgence in housing any time soon. In fact, he said, July and August numbers will probably will head back down because of wavering confidence in the US and global economies .
“Certainly the amount of anxiety about the economy can’t be positive’’ for the housing market, Glaeser said.
Eric Belsky, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, was encouraged by the modestly better June numbers.
“There’s been so little good news, and there is so little pressure, you could imagine we wouldn’t see the seasonal improvement,’’ he said.
But Belsky also does not expect any dramatic upswing in the housing market for a while. “Until we see some strong and sustained improvement in demand relative to inventory,’’ he said, “we won’t see a particularly strong rebound in prices.’’
Jenifer B. McKim can be reached at jmckim@globe.com.
