As per the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index, in March, National home prices increased 3.7% yearly down from 3.9% in February.
The rates have been seeing double-digit yearly gains, however, they are gone. One year ago, in Las Vegas, the largest annual gain was 8.2%. Seattle had a 13% gain but has dropped radically to only 1.6%. There is also a fall in 20-City Composite last year, it dropped from 6.7% to 2.7% annual gains.
Dow Jones Indices, who is a managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P wrote in a report, “Given the broader financial picture, housing should be doing superior”. He noted that the unemployment and mortgage rates were down, together with low inflation and fair increases in real earnings.
Indices further said that “the measures of household debt service do not disclose any problems and customer reaction surveys are optimistic. The complexity facing housing might be too-high costs rises.”
In the previous month, the 10-City Composite increased 2.3% yearly, down from 2.5%. But the 20-City Composite gained 2.7%, down from 3.0% in the last month.
Even now with smaller gains, the rates are still increasing two times as fast as inflation. The S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller National Index is up 3.7% almost double the 1.9% inflation rate in the last 12 months.
As measured by the indexes, rates are still higher annually in all of the 20 main cities but some are getting very close to pessimistic territory. Prices in Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego and Los Angeles are just more than 1% higher than March in 2018.
Florida, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Tampa are considering the biggest gains. They still have the extreme to go to fully recover as these were the markets hit hardest all through the housing crash. Moreover, further housing indicators are also weaker than anticipated this year.
