Housing prices in San Diego increased half a percent between April and May, amid a nationwide slowdown in home value gains, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released Tuesday.
The annual home price increase for San Diego, measured from May 2013 to May of this year, was 12.4 percent. Annual gains earlier this year were over 19 percent, and above 20 percent at times last year.
Standard & Poor’s, which studies data in 20 large housing markets, created the indices by taking housing costs in January 2000, assigning them a value of 100, and tracking their subsequent rise and fall.
San Diego’s index in May was 201.85, representing a doubling in housing prices over 15 years — despite the recession. The jump was the third-fastest in the U.S. over that time, behind Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
The 20 markets combined stood at 170.64 in May, an increase of 1.1 percent from the month before and 9.3 percent over the previous year.
“Home prices rose at their slowest pace since February of last year,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. He said the national results were “well below expectations.”
“Housing has been turning in mixed economic numbers in the last few months,” Blitzer said. “Prices and sales of existing homes have shown improvement while construction and sales of new homes continue to lag.”
He said the performance is despite the broader economy, especially employment, showing substantial gains.
— City News Service
