Housing prices rise in most U.S. cities

— -- Housing prices rose in most of the country in April, as record low mortgage rates and some of the cheapest housing prices in decades spurred some long-desired home sales.

The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of U.S. home prices rose 1.3% for the month after seven straight months of declines. The index fell 1.9% for the year that ended in April, Standard & Poor's reported today.

"All the headlines are positive on house prices, and this is important because they've been going down for five years," said UBS Investment Research economist Maury Harris. "It's a confidence builder at a time when Americans really need something good happening."

Home values rose in nearly all U.S. major cities -- 18 of the top 20 -- that the index follows, the bond-rating company said. The drop is far smaller than in the previous two months when year-over-year declines registered -2.9% and -2.6%, when prices for the month were 0.1% lower than in February and 1.9% below March 2011 levels.

Some economists may think the movement reflects a shift in the market to include fewer distress sales, which typically command lower prices, Harris said. He thinks that's incorrect, saying federal statistics that exclude most short sales and foreclosures have also risen for the last two months.

The report is one of the first upbeat signals about the housing market, which helped cause the nation's recession from 2007 to 2009 and until recently has continued to be a drag on the broader economy. On Monday, the government said that new homes sales rose at the fastest pace in two years in May.

"With April 2012 data, we finally saw some rising home prices," says David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Case-Shiller index committee at S&P Indices. " … While one month does not make a trend, particularly during seasonally strong buying months, the combination of rising positive monthly index levels and improving annual returns is a good sign.

The Case-Shiller outlook is about the same as forecasts from other experts. A group of 114 economists, executives and strategists surveyed for real-estate Web site Zillow.com expect U.S. home prices to fall 0.4% this year.

In a report on June 22, Trulia.com chief economist Jed Kolko said the housing recovery had hit a plateau in recent months, based on existing home sales, foreclosure rates and construction starts.

The next signal about the economy is scheduled to come at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, when the Conference Board reports its consumer confidence index for June. That measure is expected to fall to 63.5, from 64.9 last month. A score of 100 represents the level of confidence consumers felt in 1985, a year when the economy grew 7.3%.