Home price appreciation continued to slow in July, with prices rising only 0.5% nationally, compared to June, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index (HPI).
The index's 10- and 20-city composites each increased 0.6%, month over month.
New York was the only city where prices increased more than 1%. San Francisco posted its largest decline since February 2012 at -0.4%.
‘The broad-based deceleration in home prices continued in the most recent data,’ says David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement. ‘However, home prices continue to rise at two to three times the rate of inflation. The slower pace of home price appreciation is consistent with most of the other housing data on housing starts and home sales. The rise in August new home sales – which are not covered by the S&P/Case-Shiller indices – is a welcome exception to recent trends.’
Year over year, home prices were up 5.6% nationally in July, while the index's 10- and 20-city composites each gained 6.7%.
‘Las Vegas, one of the most depressed housing markets in the recession, is still leading the cities with 12.8% year over year,’ Blitzer adds. ‘Phoenix, the first city to see double-digit gains back in 2012, posted its lowest annual return of 5.7% since February 2012.
‘At the bottom was San Francisco with its first decline this year and the only city in the red,’ he adds. ‘New York tended to underperform over the past few years, but it was on top for the last two months.’
Blitzer points out that although the month-over-month gains are smaller compared to last year, home prices are nevertheless rising steadily: Prices rose for the first seven months of 2014.
Yesterday, Black Knight Financial Services released its HPI report, showing that U.S. home prices had inched up 0.2%, on average, in July compared to June. However, seven of the 20 largest cities in the U.S. saw home prices decline.
And last week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) released its monthly HPI, showing that home prices rose 0.1%, on a seasonally adjusted basis, in July compared to June and were up 4.4% compared to July 2013.
Each HPI uses a slightly different methodology to arrive at its findings. The FHFA's index, for example, is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages either sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.