The S&P Case-Shiller Home price Index, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, announced today that while nationally home prices are still below where they were a year ago, Phoenix did show a slight increase of point-three percent -- KJZZ's Lynn Kelly has more.

While that might sound promising, according to S&P's David Blitzer, the Managing Director and Chairman of the Index Committee, Phoenix has been experiencing a bit of an up & down pattern.  But in this report, Blitzer suggests that even with home prices in Phoenix being almost back to where they were in the year 2000 partnered with lower mortgage rates, home prices are not about to surge upward in the Phoenix market anytime soon.

"We ought to be having a big boom in housing except that there's no confidence, nobody's really willing to make a commitment to a thirty year mortage.  Or to sinking a lot of their savings into a house.  And that's the problem and the unemployment rate and the number of foreclosures & so on all hurt the confidence factor."  --  Voice:  S&P's David M. Blitzer

Blitzer says while it seems to be less of a lending issue now, given these decreasing price trends -- prospective buyers are just going to wait the market out.

For KJZZ, I'm Lynn Kelly.