House values continue to rise, with some home price indices solidly in record territory. But escalating values reflect a persistent inventory shortage.
As of June, the
Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index landed at 192.60. That was the seventh month in a row the index reached a new high.
The
Case-Shiller U.S. 20-City Composite Home Price Index came in at 200.54. The index increased 0.7 percent from May and jumped 5.7 percent from June 2016.
S&P Dow Jones Indices and CoreLogic Inc. jointly reported the Case-Shiller indices Tuesday.
The 20-city index
now stands 50 percent higher than its low back in March 2012 but is still 3 percent shy of the July 2006 peak.
“Price increases are supported by a tight housing market,” David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in the report. “Both the number of homes for sale and the number of days a house is on the market have declined for four to five years.”
Among the 20 metropolitan areas reflected in the index, Seattle was up from a year earlier by more than 13 percent — the biggest year-over-year gain of any city. Portland rose more than 8 percent, while Dallas, Denver and Detroit each saw gains of nearly 8 percent.
The weakest year-over-year gain was in Cleveland: less than 3 percent.
The
Federal Housing Finance Agency’s U.S. HPI was a seasonally adjusted 249.3 as of June 2017. That index rose 0.1 percent from the preceding month and 6.5 percent from the same month last year.
FHFA based its findings on
sales price information from mortgages sold to, or guaranteed by, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which it regulates.
“New home sales are climbing but, relative to the overall population, they still remain low from a historical perspective,” FHFA Senior Economist William Doerner stated in the report. “The tight inventory is a major explanation for why house prices have been increasing every quarter over the last six years.”
With a 9.8 year-over-year increase, the Pacific Region had the biggest gain from June 2016 in FHFA’s report. But in the Middle Atlantic region,
prices were up just 3.7 percent — the smallest gain.
Black Knight Financial Services’ current HPI value for June was $281,000 — an all-time high. That was 0.9 percent higher than the prior month and 6.2 percent more than a year prior.
Based on Black Knight’s data, home prices are up 41 percent from the January 2012 trough.
Black Knight had prices in Michigan up 1.9 percent from May 2017 — the most of any state. Wisconsin saw a 1.8 percent rise, followed by New York’s 1.7 percent, Vermont’s 1.5 percent and 1.4 percent in both New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Prices, though, were up just 0.2 percent in West Virginia and Mississippi — the weakest month-over-month gains.
Looking forward,
CoreLogic’s HPI forecast has national home prices rising 0.6 percent from June to July. From June 2017 to June 2018, CoreLogic expects prices to climb 5.2 percent.
Between May and June of this year, CoreLogic’s HPI was 1.1 percent higher, while they were up 6.7 percent from the same month last year.
“The growth in sales is slowing down, and this is not due to lack of affordability, but rather a lack of inventory,” CoreLogic Chief Economist Dr. Frank Nothaft explained in the report. “As of Q2 2017, the unsold inventory as a share of all households is 1.9 percent, which is the lowest Q2 reading in over 30 years.”
