Housing rebound continues: Prices rose for fifth straight month in September

The U.S. housing sector's long and winding road back to health continues: U.S. home prices in 20 cities rose for the fifth straight month, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price survey.

"We have seen broad improvement in home prices for most of the past six months," David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's, said in a statement. "However, the gains in the most recent month are more modest than during the seasonally strong summer months. Nationally, the U.S. National Composite rose by 3.1% in both the second and third quarters of 2009. Both the 10-City and 20-City Composites posted their fifth consecutive monthly increase with September's report."