National HPI reveals even the lowest annual gain beats inflation
Home prices continue to rise at a strong pace with inflation-beating gains for America’s biggest cities.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all 9 census divisions, reveals a 6.5% gain in the 12 months to March, maintaining the pace of the previous month.
Meanwhile, the 10-city composite increased its gain to 6.5% (from 6.4% in February) and the 20-city composite held its 6.8% annual increase for a second month.
One city continues to lead the price gains as David M. Blitzer, Managing Director and Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices explains.
"Seattle continues to report the fastest rising prices at 13% per year, double the National Index pace. While Seattle has been the city with the largest gains for 19 months, the ranking among other cities varies. Las Vegas and San Francisco saw the second and third largest annual gains of 12.4% and 11.3%. A year ago, they ranked 10th and 16th.”
Just behind Seattle’s gain are Las Vegas with a 12.4% increase and San Francisco with an 11.3% increase.
Blitzer added that the inflation-adjusted data shows that even Chicago, which recorded the lowest annual rise (2.8%) among all the index’s cities was almost a point above inflation.
March prices increased in the 20 cities
There were gains for all 20 cities in the index before seasonal adjustment and for 19 of them after adjustment.
Before seasonal adjustment, the National Index posted a month-over-month gain of 0.8% in March. The 10-City and 20-City Composites reported increases of 0.9% and 1.0%, respectively. After seasonal adjustment, the National Index recorded a 0.4% month-over-month increase in March.
