Home price gains accelerated in November, rising 9.5 percent year-over-year, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index released Tuesday.
Rising from 8.4 percent growth the month before, the home price numbers reveal a year in which the pandemic did little to temper sky-high growth seen during much of 2020, after the immediate shock of the pandemic wore off.
“The trend of accelerating home prices that began in June 2020 has now reached its sixth month with November’s emphatic report,” Craig Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “The National Composite Index gained 9.5 percent relative to its level a year ago, accelerating from October’s 8.4 percent increase.”
Phoenix, Seattle and San Diego experienced the highest gains at 13.8 percent, 12.7 percent and 12.3 percent, respectively. November’s growth is one of the highest annual increases in nearly two decades.
“As COVID-related restrictions began to grip the economy last spring, their effect on housing prices was unclear,” Lazzara said. “Price growth decelerated in May and June before beginning a steady climb upward. November’s report continues that acceleration in a particularly impressive manner. The National Composite last matched this month’s 9.5 percent growth rate in February 2014, more than six and a half years ago.”
The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index is “a composite of single-family home price indices that is calculated every month; the indices for the nine U.S. Census divisions are calculated using estimates of the aggregate value of single-family housing stock for the time period in question.”