Home prices in Los Angeles and Orange counties rose for the fourth consecutive month in July, as measured by the widely watched S&P/Case-Shiller indexes.

Details:

• On a month-to-month basis, region’s home-price index rose 0.23% from June — smallest gain since the four-month winning streak began. Across the nation, 17 of the 20 big market tracked had rising prices month-to-month; Las Vegas and Phoenix fell; Denver was unchanged.”
• Year-to-year, prices are still falling here: The LA/OC index was down 3.5% – eighth consecutive decline by this measure. On an annual basis, Detroit and Washington, D.C. were the only gainers among the big 20.

With a national bent:

• S&P’s David Blitzer four months ago called the nation’s housing market in a “double dip” downturn. Now he says: “This is still a seasonal period of stronger demand for houses, so monthly price increases are expected and were seen in 17 of the 20 cities. While we have now seen four consecutive months of generally increasing prices, we do know that we are still far from a sustained recovery.”
• From economists at Nomura: “While home prices seemed to have stabilized over 2009-10, home values embarked on a renewed downturn as policy support from a tax credit for home buyers diminished last year. The home price index is stated as a 3-month moving average and has fallen for 10 consecutive months on a year-over-year basis. Tighter lending standards and widespread expectations of further declines in home values have been depressing home sales on a larger scale than we had expected. In addition, the larger proportion of distressed assets in home sales that are typically sold at a 20% discount are putting downward pressure on house prices. To add to housing market woes, heightened financial market volatility and little to no job growth in the U.S. are depressing consumer confidence and leading to heightened contract cancellations.”
• And at IHS:” The key question is whether prices have hit bottom. Our view is that foreclosures, excess supply, and weak demand will drive prices down another 5–10%. Should the economy slip into a recession (a 40% probability in our view), the unemployment rate will climb, driving foreclosures up and leading to an even larger drop in home prices.”