July home prices end up 12% from year ago

A home in Gilbert, Ariz., awaits a buyer in late July. For the month, home prices rose 12.4 percent compared with July 2012, according to an index released Tuesday.
A home in Gilbert, Ariz., awaits a buyer in late July. For the month, home prices rose 12.4 percent compared with July 2012, according to an index released Tuesday.

WASHINGTON - U.S. home prices rose 12.4 percent in July compared with a year ago, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home-price index released Tuesday.

The jump in prices was the most since February 2006. An increase in sales on a limited supply of available homes drove the gains, the report said.

All 20 cities surveyed posted gains compared with a year ago.

Still, the month-over month price gains shrank in 15 cities in July compared with the previous month, indicating prices may be peaking. The month-over-month gains in the 20-city price index have slowed for three straight months.

“More cities are experiencing slower gains each month than the previous month, suggesting that the rate of increase may have peaked,” David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee, said in a statement.

The housing recovery began last year as traditional buyers and deep-pocketed investors rushed into the market looking for bargains amid low prices and historically low mortgage rates. What they found were few homes for sale as the rate of foreclosures plunged. Bidding wars ensued, sending prices swiftly upward and sparking concerns that some markets had become overheated.

Stan Humphries, chief economist for real estate data provider Zillow, said home prices should continue to rise but at a slower pace. Mortgage rates have increased more than a full percentage point since May. And more homes are being built. That should ease supply constraints that have inflated prices in some markets.

“This ongoing moderation is good for the market overall,” Humphries said.

Home prices soared 27.5 percent in Las Vegas from a year earlier, the 20 cities’ largest gain. San Francisco’s 24.8 percent jump was the second-largest and the biggest yearly return for that city since March 2001.

The index covers roughly half of U.S. homes. It measures prices compared with those in January 2000 and creates a three-month moving average. The July figures are the latest available. They are not adjusted for seasonal variations, so the monthly gains reflect more buying activity over the summer.

Since bottoming out in March 2012, home prices have rebounded about 21 percent. They remain about 22 percent below the peak reached in July 2006.

Price increases “will start to slow down to a fairly sustainable pace,” said Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York and the best home-price forecaster over the past two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “The increase in mortgage rates will slow things down a bit at the margin. As the economy does better, people will be in a better position to weather the higher rates.”

The housing market has been recovering over the past year, helped by steady job growth, low mortgage rates and relatively low prices.

Sales of previously owned homes rose in August to a seasonally adjusted 5.5 million annual pace, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s a healthy level and the highest in more than six years.

But the Realtors group cautioned that the August pace could represent a temporary peak. The gain reflected closings and largely occurred because many buyers rushed to lock in mortgage rates in June and July before they increased further. The Realtors said buyer traffic dropped off noticeably in August, likely reflecting the higher rates.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was 4.5 percent last week. That’s near a two-year high. It’s still low by historical standards.

Rates rose in May after Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested that the Federal Reserve could slow its bond-purchase program before the end of the year.

But the Fed surprised markets last week by deciding against reducing the $85 billion-a-month in bond buys, which have kept longer-term interest rates low. The Fed said a key reason for its decision was the sharp increase in mortgage rates and other interest rates.

The Fed’s decision could ease rates temporarily, although many economists expect the Fed to ultimately slow the purchases, perhaps as early as December. Rates would likely rise after that.

The Case-Shiller index, created by economists Karl Case and Robert Shiller, is widely considered the most reliable read on home values. The housing index compares the latest sales of detached houses with previous sales and accounts for factors such as remodeling that might affect a house’s sale price over time. Information for this article was contributed by Christopher S. Rugaber of The Associated Press, Shobhana Chandra of Bloomberg News and Andrew Khouri of the Los Angeles Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/25/2013

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