Sept. home prices show smaller annual gains
This year's slowdown in home prices carried into September as annual gains slid below 5% for the first time in almost two years, according to a closely-followed barometer of the market.
Slower rising home prices are good news for buyers amid signs of a recent pick-up in sales and interest rates that remain near all-time lows.
The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index of home prices rose 4.9% in September, compared with 5.6% in August, Standard & Poor's said Tuesday.
Home prices have been decelerating this year after turning in double-digit gains in many top markets in 2013 and early this year. September was the 10th straight month in which the Case-Shiller 20-city index showed a smaller annual gain than in the previous month.
Miami was the only city in the index where September prices showed a double-digit annual gain -- 10.3%.
Las Vegas, where prices had been rising rapidly for more than two years, dropped to a 9.1% gain -- the first single-digit annual increase in that market since October 2012.
Cleveland had the smallest annual gain at 0.8%.
In Washington, D.C., year-over-year price gains slipped to 2.1% in September, down a full percentage point from August.
"The overall trend in home price increases continues to slow down," said David Blitzer, who chairs the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. "The West and Southwest, previously strong regions, are seeing price gains fade. The only region showing any sustained strength is the Southeast led by Florida."
Housing has turned in a mixed performance this year, disappointing forecasters who were expecting a stronger recovery in 2014.
Existing home sales did show improvement last month, rising to the strongest annual pace in more than a year. October sales were up 2.5% from a year earlier, the first month this year that sales showed year-over-year gains.
Interest rates remain at or near historic lows. Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates dipped to 3.99% last week, compared with 4.22% a year ago, Freddie Mac reported last week.