House prices hit record highs again in February

Home prices in February rose 6.4% year over year, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index released Tuesday.

In January, home prices rose 6% year over year, according to the index, the fastest annual growth since 2022.

The 10-city composite rose 8%, up from a 7.4% increase in the previous month, according to an affirmation released with the index.

The 20-city composite showed a 7.3% annual increase, up from a 6.6% increase in the previous month.

San Diego has the largest annual increase among these 20 cities, with an 11.4% increase in home prices in February, followed by Chicago and Detroit with 8.9% increases.

Portland saw the smallest increase in home prices at 2.2%.

“Following last year’s decline, U.S. home prices are at or near all-time highs,” said Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Luke added that the 10- and 20-city composite indexes are now at historic highs, and for the third month in a row, all cities reported an increase in annual home prices.

San Diego, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. all have home prices at all-time highs, according to Luke.

The two Southern California cities outperformed northern neighbors such as San Francisco – which has seen a 12% home price drop since its peak in 2022 – as well as the Phoenix and Las Vegas markets, where home prices have fallen. 6 and 4.5. percent, respectively.

Luke added that the Northeast has been the best performing market over the past year and a half, in part due to companies requiring workers to return to the office.

“As remote work benefited smaller (and sunnier) markets in the first part of the decade, the return to the office may be contributing to outperformance in the Northeast’s largest metro markets,” he said.