NEWS FLASH

Report: Housing Prices See First Annual Rise In Five Years | In the latest sign that America’s downtrodden housing market is beginning to recover, a new report showed that housing prices in the second quarter of 2012 saw rose from the same time last year — the first annual increase in prices since 2007. Home values rose 0.2 percent over the same period last year, according to a report from Zillow Inc., a real estate firm. Nearly one-third of the 167 metro areas the company tracks saw annual increases, and home values climbed 2.1 percent from the first quarter to the second, the largest rise since 2005. But while some markets are getting good news — prices rose in Phoenix and foreclosures are at a five-year low in California — others, as the Wall Street Journal notes, continue to struggle: prices dropped 6 percent in Atlanta and 5 percent in Chicago, according to Zillow.