According to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index, U.S. home prices grew 3.2% annually this past August, a figure that was virtually unchanged from the 3.1% year-over-year gain in July.
The index, which is maintained by Standard & Poor’s in conjunction with CoreLogic, showed that despite prices continuing to rise, their growth rate across the U.S. continues to decelerate.
Similar to the national index, the two component indices tracked by S&P and CoreLogic were relatively stagnant and trending downward. The 10-city composite index posted a slight annual retreat to 1.5% in August, down from 1.6% in July. The 20-city composite index had a 2% year-over-year gain in August, unchanged from the previous month.
On a monthly basis, the national index posted an increase of 0.2% in August, or 0.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis. Of the 20 cities tracked individually by the indices, 11 reported monthly home-price increases prior to seasonal adjustment, while 17 reported gains after taking seasonality into account.
Notably, Las Vegas, which topped the nation in year-over-year price growth as recently as April 2019, has fallen out of the top three cities in that metric. Phoenix continued to lead the way with a 6.3% annualized price gain in August, followed by Charlotte (4.5%), Tampa (4.3%) and Atlanta (4%). Las Vegas fell all the way to eighth as its price growth fell from 4.7% annual growth in July to 3.3% in August.
Philip Murphy, managing director and global head of index governance at S&P Dow Jones Indices, noted that three out of the top four cities were in the Southeast region. He observed that “a shift in regional leadership may be underway beneath the headline national index.”
