Glimmers Of Hope In Housing, Consumer Confidence

Moderating declines in home sales offered a measure of hope to Wall Street on Tuesday, as did a rise in consumer confidence in August.

The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index fell fell 0.5% from May to June, while the 10-city index fell 0.6% over the month. That's a slower pace than the 2.0% to 2.5% monthly drops seen earlier in 2008.
Still, the latest reading offers little hope the slumping housing market will firm up in the near term.

"While there is no national turnaround in residential real estate prices, it is possible that we are seeing some regions struggling to come back, which has resulted in some moderation in price declines at the national level," says David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's.

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