US house-price growth picks up to 14-month high

26th Mar 2024 14:40

(Sharecast News) - House-price growth in major US cities picked up slightly in January, accelerating to its fastest pace in 14 months, according to S&P/Case-Shiller data released on Tuesday.

The 20-City Composite index, which measures residential real estate prices in 20 major metropolitan areas across the country, showed prices were up 6.6% on January 2023, picking up from the 6.2% annual growth seen in December.

This was slightly below the 6.7% increase expected by economists but the highest rate of growth since November 2022.

However, prices across the 20 cities compared with December were down 0.1% with 17 of the 20 markets seeing declines month-on-month as elevated borrowing costs continued to bite.

The lesser-followed National Composite index rose by 6% year-on-year in January, up from 5.6% the month before - also the fastest annual increase since 2022.

"We've commented on how consistent each market performed during 2023 and that continues to be the case," said Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices. "While there is a large disparity between leaders such as San Diego versus laggards such as with Portland, the broad market performance is tightly bunched up.

"Homeowners most likely saw healthy gains in the last year, no matter what city you were in, or if it was in an expensive or inexpensive neighbourhood. No matter which way you slice it, the index performance closely resembled the broad market."