By Alan Zibel and Tom Barkley
Here’s another sign the housing market is improving: U.S. home prices took the biggest quarterly jump in 6 1/2 years, according to a government index.
Home prices rose 1.8% in the April-June period compared with the first quarter of the year, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Thursday. It was the biggest quarterly jump since the fourth quarter of 2005, when prices rose by 2.2%. Prices were up 3% from the same quarter a year earlier.
On a monthly basis, prices adjusted for seasonal factors were up 0.7% in June from a month earlier, a better result than forecast. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a 0.6% monthly increase. Prices in May were up 0.6% from a month earlier, revised from the previous reading of a 0.8% increase.
Read the oriiginal Wall Street Journal article here