Home Price Gains Reach 31-Month High

“The national price trend has been positive since the first quarter of 2012,,” says Blitzer.

NEW YORK CITY—Prices on single-family homes rose faster than expected in January, with S&P Dow Jones Indices on Tuesday posting a 5.7% year-over-year increase in the 20-city S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index and a 5.9% increase in the US National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine US census divisions. The latter index grew at the fastest pace since July 2014, while the 20-city composite beat estimates of 5.6% from economists polled by Bloomberg and Reuters. The seasonally adjusted month-over-month increase of 0.9% also beat estimates.

“While prices vary month-to-month and across the country, the national price trend has been positive since the first quarter of 2012,” says David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. He notes that last month, the inventory of homes in the market represented 3.7 months of sales, lower than the long-term average of six months.