Dive Brief:
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Home prices continued their slow, upward climb in February, inching up by just 0.1% over January, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed on Tuesday.
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Since February 2014, home prices have risen 4.2%, outpacing inflation and wage increases, the report noted. The National Association of Realtors reported last week that the median resale price of an existing home had increased 7.8% between March 2014 and March 2015. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun called the imbalance “a worrisome trend.”
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Denver and Dallas are the only two markets where home prices have exceeded their pre-recession peaks, the Case-Shiller index showed.
Dive Insight:
Another worry, noted David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, is the lack of a return to peak pricing in nearly every market. “If a complete recovery means new highs all around, we're not there yet,” he said in a statement.
The Case-Shiller index coincided with a report last month from RealtyTrac showing home prices rose 13 times faster than wages between 2012 and 2014.
