Steel Markets

Case-Shiller Index Reports Slowing Home Prices in May

July 29, 2019

Home prices continued to rise in May but at a much slower pace, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price NSA Index. The Index showed an annual gain of 3.4 percent in May, down from 3.5 percent in April. The 20-City Composite price growth slipped to 2.4 percent from 2.5 percent the previous month.

Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tampa reported the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities—6.4 percent, 5.7 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively. Seven of the 20 cities reported greater price increases in the year ending May 2019 versus the year ending April 2019. On a month-over-month basis, the National index increased 0.2 percent and the 20-City Composite 0.1 percent.

“Nationally, year-over-year home price gains were lower in May than in April, but not dramatically so and a broad-based moderation continued,” said Philip Murphy, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Governance at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “Among 20 major U.S. city home price indices, the average YOY gain has been declining for the past year or so and now stands at the moderate nominal YOY rate of 3.1 percent.

“Whether negative YOY rates of change spread to other cities remains to be seen; for now, there is still substantial diversity in local trends. Nationally, increasing housing supply points to somewhat weakened demand, but the fact that seven cities experienced stronger YOY price gains in May than they did in April suggests an underlying resiliency that may mitigate the risk of overshooting to the downside at the national level,” he added.