This is interesting........people will start yelling bubble but if you look at the markets that had doubled digit/ 20% increase in prices YOY, only LA and SF can be considered at all bubblicious..........and they have a history of housing bubbles. Cities like Vegas, Phoenix and Atlanta were done so low the increase is a drop in the bucket.
Home prices up 12.1% in April
Julie Schmit, USA TODAY 9:45 a.m. EDT June 25, 2013
A sale pending sign is posted in front of a home for sale in May in San Francisco.(Photo: Justin Sullivan Getty Images)
Story HighlightsAll cities in Case-Shiller Index post gains from MarchStrong demand, tight supplies lift pricesAtlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco were leading year-over-year gainers
Home prices rose a record 12.1% in the year ending in April, the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller index showed Tuesday.
From March, prices were up 2.5% for the 20-city composite index.
All 20 cities showed positive year-over-year returns for at least the fourth consecutive month.
"The recovery is definitely broad based," said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's index committee.
That should continue, despite rising interest rates and fears of further increases, he said, in part because some banks are easing credit restrictions.
Along with Phoenix and San Francisco, Atlanta and Las Vegas also posted year-over-year gains of more than 20% in April.
San Francisco was up almost 24%; Las Vegas, more than 22%: Phoenix, almost 22%; and Atlanta, nearly 21%.
In April, 19 of 20 cities posted positive returns. Detroit was the only metro where prices were flat.
While April's numbers were strong, inventory levels are beginning to show signs of easing, and mortgage interest rates are creeping up.
"Going forward, both of these factors will help mitigate extreme price spikes caused by very strong housing demand and very low housing supply," says Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries.
He says "runaway" appreciation in many of the large coastal metros that form the backbone of the Case-Shiller indices will begin to moderate.
While the Case-Shiller index measures prices for leading cities, data from real estate website Trulia shows prices rising nearly everywhere in the U.S., but even faster in cities than in the suburbs.
Based on median asking prices per square foot for all non-foreclosure listings on Trulia through May 2013, it found urban home prices up 11.3% year-over-year vs. 10.2% in the suburbs.
The Case-Shiller index showed larger price jumps in March and April than at any time during the housing bubble's build-up, but today's prices are still undervalued relative to other economic benchmarks, says Trulia economist Jed Kolko.
"These bubble-like gains are actually a rebound, not a new bubble," he says.
Like other economists, Kolko expects recent "lightening price gains" to fade in the face of rising mortgage rates, increasing supply of homes for sale and faltering investor interest.
In a separate report on home prices, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said prices rose 7.4% in the year through April. The FHFA index, which tracks single-family transactions financed by mortgages owned or backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is 11.7% below its April 2007 peak and roughly the same as in January 2005.
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