Home prices rose 6.3% on an annual basis in February, not seasonally adjusted, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, released Tuesday.
In January, the index rose 6.1% on an annualized basis.
The 10-city composite index grew 6.5% year-over-year, up from 6.0% in the prior month, while the 20-city index grew 6.8% year-over-year, up from 6.4% in January.
Seasonally adjusted month-over-month, the national index rose 0.5% in February, the 20-city composite grew 0.8%, and the 10-city composite increased 0.8%. Before adjustment the national index was up 0.4% in the month, which the 10- and 20-city composites each gained 0.7%.
Economists polled by IFR Markets expected a 0.7% rise month-over-month and 6.3% year-over-year.
“Seattle, Las Vegas, and San Francisco continue to report the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities. In February, Seattle led the way with a 12.7% year-over-year price increase, followed by Las Vegas with an 11.6% increase and San Francisco with a 10.1% increase,” according to a release.
Thirteen cities saw larger price increases for the year ending February than in January.
“Increasing employment supports rising home prices both nationally and locally,” David M. Blitzer, managing director & chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a release. “Among the 20 cities covered by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, Seattle enjoyed both the largest gain in employment and in home prices over the 12 months ended in February 2018. At the other end of the scale, Chicago was ranked 19th in both home price and employment gains; Cleveland ranked 18th in home prices and 20th in employment increases. In San Francisco and Los Angeles, home price gains ranked much higher than would be expected from their employment increases, indicating that California home prices continue to rise faster than might be expected. In contrast, Miami home prices experienced some of the smaller increases despite better than average employment gains.”
