Steel Markets

Nation's Home Prices Rise Modestly in April

June 30, 2020

Home prices increased at a modest rate in April, reported the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices. The index showed a 4.7 annual gain, up from 4.6 percent in March. The 10-City Composite was unchanged while the 20-City composite inched up 0.1 percent to 4.0 percent year-over-year.

On a month-over-month basis, the National Index posted a 1.1 percent increase, while the 10-City and 20-City Composites posted increases of 0.7 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively.

“April’s housing price data continue to be remarkably stable,” says Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “April’s year-over-year gains were ahead of March’s, continuing a trend of gently accelerating home prices that began last fall. Results in April continued to be broad-based.”

Lazzara added, “As was the case in March, we have data from only 19 cities this month, since transaction records for Wayne County, Mich., (in the Detroit metropolitan area) continue to be unavailable. This is, so far, the only directly visible impact of COVID-19 on the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices. The price trend that was in place pre-pandemic seems so far to be undisturbed, at least at the national level. Indeed, prices in 12 of the 20 cities in our survey were at an all-time high in April.”

Leading the price gains regionally were Phoenix, Seattle, Minneapolis and Cleveland with increases of 8.8 percent, 7.3 percent, 6.4 percent and 6.0 percent, respectively. “Prices were particularly strong in the West and Southeast, and comparatively weak in the Northeast,” said Lazzara.