In March, Denver reached a milestone: The metro area reached a new high in its home price levels, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices. Nationally, the Indices showed modest gains of .8% and .9% from February to March, and saw the annual rate gain slowed significantly.

Denver, on the other hand, showed a 1.4% increase from February to March — a new index peak. The year-over-year gain still hovers at 9.1%

Commenting on the national trend, David M. Blitzer, chair of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices said that the year-over-year changes suggest that while prices are rising, they’re doing so at a slower pace. Annual 10- and 20-city composite price increases have “slowed in the last four months, and 13 cities saw annual price changes moderate in March,” he said. “The National Index also showed decelerating gains in the last quarter.”

Among those cities in our region that saw substantial slowdowns in price gains were those that were hammered by the bust of the great recession: Las Vegas and Phoenix. “Despite signs of decelerating prices,” Blitzer continued, “all cities were higher than a year ago and all but New York were higher in March than in February. However, only Denver and Dallas have set new post-crisis highs — and they experienced relatively lower peaks than other cities.”

Blitzer observed that housing indicators remain mixed. While April housing starts recovered the drop in March, he said that most of that was in apartments and single family homebuilding remains soft nationwide. Mortgage rates are near a seven-month low, but comments from the Fed point to bank lending standards as a problem. And, he said that arguments that "student loan debt is preventing many first-time buyers from entering the housing market." Read more...

 

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