Overall price increases across the country continued to slow, according to the latest S&P Case Shiller monthly report. Looking at all nine US Census divisions, Case Shiller’s annual price gain registered +3.4% in May 2019, down from +3.5% in April.
Case Shiller’s 10-City Composite showed a +2.2% price gain, down from 2.3% in April and its 20-City Composite showed a +2.4% price gain, down from +2.5% in April.
Philip Murphy, the Managing Director and Global Head of Index Governance with the S&P Dow Jones Indices, said, “…the average YOY gain (in home prices) has been declining for the past year or so and now stands at the moderate nominal YOY rate of +3.1%.
Eight cities saw larger annual gains than the Case Shiller average of +3.4%. Those cities included
- Las Vegas – +6.4%
- Phoenix – +5.7%
- Tampa – +5.1%
- Atlanta – +4.7%
- Charlotte +4.5%
- Detroit – +4.0%
- Minneapolis & Cleveland – +3.6%
The ONLY city to show a decrease in annual home prices in May 2019 was Seattle with a drop of -1.2%.
Murphy’s summary comment about all of Case Shiller’s home price research in May was “…Seattle’s home price index is now -1.2% less than it was in May 2018, the first negative YOY change recorded in a major city in a number of years…whther negative YOY rates of change spread to other cities remains to be seen; for now, there is still substantial diversity in local trends.”
Murphy continued his comments by saying, “Nationally, increasing housing supply points to somewhat weaker demand, but the fact that (eight) cities experienced strong YOY price gains in May than they did in April suggests an underlying resiliency that may mitigate the risk of overshooting to the downside at the national level.”
