San Diego home prices in April continued to outpace nation, state

San Diego County home prices in April continued to outpace the rest of the state and nation for the third month in a row, said the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices released Tuesday.

The indices, adjusted for seasonal swings, showed San Diego County home prices rose 6.6 percent in a year. Prices increased 5.5 percent nationwide, down from 5.8 percent in March and missing some analysts’ expectations.

Los Angeles prices increased 5.3 percent in the same time period and San Francisco by 5 percent. Of the 20 major regions followed by the indices, San Diego ranked No. 8 in April, above Chicago, New York, Miami, Washington, D.C., and other markets.

Low mortgage rates and lack of homes for sale throughout the nation are continuing to push prices up, wrote David Blitzer, managing chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in the monthly report.

“The question is not if home prices can climb without any limit; they can’t,” he wrote. “Rather, will home price gains gently slow or will they crash and take the economy down with them?”

Blitzer wrote that a crash will likely be avoided, at the moment, because housing starts are trending higher and rising prices may encourage some owners to sell. Also, nationwide outstanding mortgage debt — $14.4 trillion — is about $400 billion below the record set in 2008.

Seattle had the biggest yearly increase at 12.9 percent, followed by Portland at 9.3 percent and Dallas at 8.4 percent.

Cities with the smallest gains were Washington, D.C., at 3.6 percent and Cleveland at 3.4 percent.

Zillow chief economist Svenja Gudell wrote that April’s numbers showed a very difficult market for buyers, and the factors that lead to less construction mean all sorts of changes for the market.

“A surge in the share of single-family homes being converted into rentals is keeping many homes off the market that otherwise may have traded hands every few years,” she wrote.

The San Diego County median home price hit $530,000 in May, the second time the county has surpassed the $517,500 record reached in November 2005. However, when adjusted for inflation, that 2005 median is $644,500 and the county’s current price is still far from reaching it.

The Case-Shiller index goes beyond evaluating home transaction prices to track repeat sales of identical single-family houses as they turn over through the years.

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S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices for April 2017

Yearly increases by city

Seattle — 12.9 percent

Portland — 9.3 percent

Dallas — 8.4 percent

Denver — 8.2 percent

Detroit — 7.4 percent

Las Vegas — 6.8 percent

Boston — 6.7 percent

San Diego — 6.6 percent

Minneapolis — 6.3 percent

Charlotte — 6.1 percent

Atlanta — 5.8 percent

Phoenix — 5.7 percent

Miami — 5.4 percent

Los Angeles — 5.3 percent

San Francisco — 5 percent

Tampa — 5 percent

Chicago — 4 percent

New York — 3.8 percent

Washington D.C. — 3.6 percent

Cleveland — 3.4 percent

phillip.molnar@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1891 Twitter: @phillipmolnar

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