Home prices were up 5.7 percent year over year in August, an increase from 4.8 percent the prior month, according to data released Tuesday by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index.
Both the 10-city composite index and 20-city composite index — which tracks home prices in the nation’s largest metros — also saw the rate of home price increases accelerate.
The annual increase is the largest in 25 months, according to Craig Lazzara, the managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices. If prices continue to increase at this rate, the housing market may officially be past the COVID-19-related price deceleration, Lazzara said in a statement.
“A trend of accelerating increases in the National Composite Index began in August 2019 but was interrupted in May and June, as COVID-related restrictions produced modestly-decelerating price gains,” Craig Lazzara said. “We speculated last month that the accelerating trend might have resumed, and August’s results easily bear that interpretation.”
Regionally prices increased the most in Phoenix, Seattle and San Diego. All 19 cities tracked in the 20-city composite — data isn’t available for Detroit due to COVID-19 — posted year-over-year increases. Even Chicago, the worst-performing city, saw a 1.2 percent increase.
“It’s a measure of housing’s strength that even the worst-performing cities, Chicago and New York, did better in August than in July,” Lazzara said. “Prices were strongest in the West and Southeast regions, and comparatively weak in the Midwest and Northeast.”
