S&P/Case-Shiller home price indices (Credit: S&P Case-Shiller via S&P Dow Jones indices and CoreLogic)
The 20-city S&P Case-Shiller house price index for March climbed 10.87 percent on the year. This beat expectations for a 10.2 percent rise.
This is also the fastest pace of increase since April 2006.
February’s number was revised up modestly to show a 9.35 percent rise.
On the month home prices were up 1.12 percent, above expectations for a 1 percent rise. February’s number was also revised up on a monthly basis to show a 1.32 percent rise.
First quarter home prices were up 10.17 percent on the year, beating expectations for a 9.6 percent rise. The fourth quarter of 2012 number was revised down to show a 7.25 percent rise.
Both the 10 and 20-city home price indices are about 28 to 29 percent off their June/July 2006 peaks.
“Phoenix again had the largest annual increase at 22.5 percent followed by San Francisco with 22.2 percent and Las Vegas with 20.6 percent. Miami and Tampa, the eastern end of the Sunbelt, were softer with annual gains of 10.7 percent and 11.8 percent. The weakest annual price gains were seen in New York (2.6 percent), Cleveland (4.8 percent) and Boston (6.7 percent); even these numbers are quite substantial.”