The Case Shiller Index for June 2012 was released on Tuesday.  For the second month in a row, Portland showed strong gains, increasing 2.5% to 138.51.  Combined with the 2.6 % gain from April to May, the Case Shiller Index for Portland is up 3.0% in the last year.  It’s good news but has a cautionary tale: in 2011 we saw similar mid-year gains what were all given back in the second half of the year.  If we can have two or three more strong months we really might be able to say we were looking at the bottom in March at  129.01 but two strong months does not equal a recovery unto itself.  We’re currently at the same level as December 2010.

Case Shiller looks back two months and includes all of the seven county Portland/Vancouver MSA.