Aerial view from a drone shows homes in a neighborhood on January 26, 2021 in Miramar, Florida.
Joe Raedle | beautiful pictures
US home prices rebounded in October as the housing market continued to boom after last year’s coronavirus recession.
S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller’s 20-city home price index, on Tuesday, rose 18.4% in October from a year earlier. The gain marked a slight deceleration from the 19.1% year-on-year increase in September but was in line with what economists had expected.
All 20 cities posted double-digit year-over-year increases. The hottest markets were Phoenix (up 32.3%), Tampa (28.1%) and Miami (25.7%). Minneapolis and Chicago had the smallest increases, 11.5% each.
The housing market has rallied on the back of bottoming mortgage rates, a limited supply of homes in the market and consumer demand pent-up last year by the pandemic. Many Americans, tired of being locked at home during the pandemic, are looking to transition from apartments to private homes or to larger homes.
Craig Lazzara, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said it’s not yet clear whether the change is permanent or an aberration.
“We have previously suggested that the strength of the US housing market is being driven in part by a shift in local preferences as households respond to the COVID pandemic,” said Lazzara. the increase in purchases will occur over the next few years or reflect a more permanent change in secularity. ”
Last week, mortgage rates fell – to 3.05% on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage and 2.66% on a 15-year home loan. Persistently low rates signal that credit markets appear more concerned about the omicron variation denting economic growth than about the highest inflation rate in nearly 40 years.
The National Association of Realtors reported last week that sales of previously occupied homes rose for the third consecutive month in November to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 6, 46 million.
