Index shows U.S. home prices increase from 1Q to 2Q

Home prices posted their first quarterly increase in three years, signaling the housing market has turned a corner.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller's U.S. National Home Price Index released Tuesday rose nearly 3 percent from the first quarter to 133, though that reading is still down almost 15 percent from the second quarter last year.

Home prices are at levels not seen since early 2003. Prices have fallen 30 percent from the peak in the second quarter of 2006.

The monthly index of 20 major cities increased 1.4 percent from May to June to 142, the second straight month the index registered a gain. All but two cities, Las Vegas and Detroit, saw home prices rise, and Dallas and Denver clocked their fourth-straight monthly increase.

In the Seattle area, prices of existing homes were up slightly, 0.4 percent from May to June, but down 16.1 percent from a year earlier.

Prices, however, have a long way to go to recover completely. Every metro showed annual declines, with 15 reporting double-digit drops.

The Case-Shiller index is a composite of home price indexes for the nine U.S. census divisions. The 20-city index measures home price increases and decreases relative to prices in January 2000. The base reading is 100; so a reading of 150 would mean that home prices increased 50 percent since the beginning of the index.