U.S. home price gains picked up in November with the market still supported by cheap credit and tight supplies, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday, AFP reports.
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The 20-City Case-Shiller Composite Index increased 5.8 percent year-over-year in November, up from October’s gain of 5.5 percent.
Also due this morning is the house price index for November from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He noted that sales of existing homes rose by a solid 6.5 percent in 2015 compared to 2014, and the consumer side of the economy, including automobile sales, also were strong previous year.
Prices rose 0.9 percent in November from October on a seasonally adjusted basis, the survey showed, topping expectations for a rise of 0.8 percent. “Businesses in the oil and energy sectors are suffering from the 75% drop in oil prices in the last 18 months”.
Broken up across the country, Portland, San Francisco and Denver continue to report the highest year over year gains among the 20 cities with another month of double digit annual price increases. Housing is not large enough to offset all of these weak spots.
To put things in perspective, the S&P/Case-Shiller index is about 4.8 percent below the peak it set in July 2006, and 29.2 percent above the bottom it touched in January 2012. Four metro areas – Dallas, Denver, San Francisco and Portland Oregon – have either matched or eclipsed their all-time highs.
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Seattle is just 3.2 percent below its July 2007 peak.
