ome prices posted 5.2% quarter-over-quarter gains, putting prices 8.8% above levels experienced in June 2009, Clear Capital says in its most recent Home Data Index Market Report. Regionally, the Midwest and South saw the largest quarterly price growth, while the West and Northeast showed more stable quarterly gains. ‘Price trends nationwide have a seen a considerable upswing, driven, in large part, by the flurry of recent sales attributed to the tax credit and springtime buying activity,’ says Alex Villacorta, a senior statistician with Clear Capital. ‘This month's national quarterly gains are certainly a positive sign that many markets have responded to the tax credit incentive, but overall markets remain volatile, as evidenced by the six-month price change keeping mostly flat.’ The Midwest continued to lead the nation with quarterly price gains of 9.2%, pushing year-over-year gains to 17.2% off the deep lows of last year. The other three regions experienced yearly prices more consistent with the national year-over-year average of 8.8%. Despite strong quarterly gains, all four regions remained within 2% of the levels achieved last fall, which Clear Capital says reveals the price volatility experienced this past winter. As a whole, the real estate owned (REO) saturation rate was reduced to 24.6% – a decline of 3.2 percentage points from what was reported in May. The effects of the April tax credit have likely been amplified with the onset of the springtime buying season, Clear Capital says, adding that the tax credit succeeded, at least in the near term, in creating an environment more resilient to the ongoing foreclosure influences. Home-price gains across the U.S. were helped largely by the quarterly jump in prices by the top 15 highest-performing major markets. Quarterly prices for the group are up an average 12.6%, while yearly price gains are up 17.1%. ‘Metro-level markets are showing recent signs of healthy price growth, yet many of these markets are simply returning to their pre-winter levels, and some of the hardest hit areas remain as much as 54 percent below their 2006 peaks,’ Villacorta adds. ‘While there is still a lot of ground to be made up, the 8.8 percent yearly gain is a strong lift off of the severe lows of last year, especially when you consider in the same time period unemployment and REO saturation levels hit their highest point in more than two decades.’ SOURCE: [link=http://www.clearcapital.com/company/MarketReport.cfm?month=July&year=2010]Clear Capital