A glimmer of hope for US Housing?

Yesterday's Pending Home sales showed a rise of 5% for the month of June, the most in more than 3 years. However, pending sales are still 8.6% below the pace seen during June 2006, suggesting the real-estate market still has distance to climb back from its slump.

Does this represent the start of a turn-around in the US housing market? Here's what some economists think:

it's too early to say if home sales have "passed bottom." However, "major declines in home sales are likely to have occurred already and further declines, if any, are likely to be modest given the accumulating pent-up demand," Lawrence Yun, NAR's senior economist

Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics was a little less optimistic:

"We expect the index to continue heading south over the next few months; after three straight declines totaling 11.1%, a single 5.0% rise does not change the big picture,"

One month does not maketh a trend.

Major Cities report biggest housing price declines since 1991

The Case-Shiller 20-city index fell 2.8% compared with a year earlier, S&P said. That's the biggest decline in the seven-year history of the 20-city index. Of the 20 cities, 15 showed lower prices compared with a year earlier.

The last time prices fell so much, it took more than 8 years for home prices to return to their peak level.

The silver lining in the data if there is any to be had is that on a month-to-month basis, prices rose in 8 of the 20 cities, compared with only 1 city gaining earlier this year, However once again little can be gained from one months data.