Of 20 metropolitan areas surveyed, nine saw home prices increase in January compared with the same month a year ago. The Denver-metro area was one of them. The region’s home prices were up 2.6 percent in January, representing the sixth-largest increase among the cities. The information, listed in yesterday’s Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index (via INDenverTimes), makes Vectra Bank Colorado economist Jeff Thredgold believe Denver has “pretty much stabilized,” he tells The Denver Post. “Prices are reasonably flat from a year ago. It’s good to see home prices stabilizing, but it doesn’t suggest that we’re going to start seeing five to 10 percent gains a year like we did 10 years ago.” Overall, the report is “mixed,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s, says in a statement (via The Washington Post). The “rebound in housing prices seen last fall is fading.” And given the data, “we can’t say we’re out of the woods yet.” Housing analysts also fret over an anticipated increase in foreclosures hitting the market this year, and a Federal Reserve program that has kept interest rates low ends Wednesday, a situation that could lead some potential buyers to wait.