Case Shiller Home Prices Rise a Record 2.5% in One Month

Home prices rose faster from March tornApril than they ever have in the history of the Case Shiller Indices</athe S&P/Case-Shiller announced today. The 10-City and 20-CityrnComposites posted monthly gains of 2.6 percent and 2.5 percentrnrespectively. Nineteen of the 20 cities tracked by the compositesrnwere up for the month; Detroit was the sole exception. </p

Blitzer notedrnthat the sharp increases in Treasury yields and the Federal Reserve’srncomments about its future actions had sparked fears of risingrninterest rates and what they might do to housing’s recovery. But hernadded, “Home buyers have survived rising mortgage rates in thernpast, often by shifting from fixed rate to adjustable rate loans. Inrnthe housing boom, bust and recovery, banks’ credit quality standardsrnwere more important than the level of mortgage rates. The mostrnrecent Fed Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey shows that some banksrnare easing credit restrictions. Given this, the recovery shouldrncontinue.”</p

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As of April,rnaverage home prices in the U.S. Are back to early 2004 levels forrnboth Composites. Measured from their June/July 2006 peaks, pricesrnfor the Composites are down about 26 percent and the 10 and 20-Cityrnindices are up off of their March 2012 lows by 13.1 percent and 13.6rnpercent respectively. </p

Annual gainsrnamong the 20 cities ranged from a low of 3.2 percent in New York tornthe 23.9 percent noted above for San Francisco. Other notable annualrnincreases were 22.3 percent for Las Vegas, 21.5 percent in Phoenix,rnand 20.8 percent in Atlanta. California cities were seeing what thernreport called impressive returns all around, with gains ranging fromrn3.4 percent to 4.9 percent. Los Angeles, San Diego, and SanrnFrancisco posted their highest gains since 2004, 1988, and 1987rnrespectively. On the east coast, Miami showed its biggest increasernin over seven years, 2.4 percent.</p

ThernS&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices track the price path ofrntypical single-family homes located in each of the 20 cities in therntwo Composites. Each index combines matched price pairs forrnthousands of individual houses from the available universe of armsrnlength sales data. The indices have a base value of 100 in Januaryrn2000, thus a current index value of 150 translates to a 50 percentrnappreciation rate since January 2000 for a typical home locatedrnwithin the subject market.

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