Standard & Poor’s (S&P) released December 2014 values for its Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which tracks the prices of existing single-family homes in 20 U.S. metro areas. The index in each metropolitan area extends from a base value of 100 in January 2000. For example, Chicago’s December 2014 index value was 126.98 before seasonal adjustment; this translates to a 26.98 percent appreciation since January 2000 for a typical home in the Chicago market.

• All 20 cities tracked and both composite indices showed positive year-over-year returns in December. In Chicago, the index increased 1.3 percent from 125.29 in December 2013 to 126.98 in December 2014. This growth was slower than November 2014, when prices increased 1.8 percent from the previous year.
• Chicago’s index level decreased by 0.9 percent from the month before, a sharper decrease than the 10-City and 20-City Composite monthly rates of change (-0.1 percent for both).
• In a press release, Standard & Poor’s Index Committee Chairman David M. Blitzer said, “The housing recovery is faltering. While prices and sales of existing homes are close to normal, construction and new home sales remain weak. Before the current business cycle, any time housing starts were at their current level of about one million at annual rates, the economy was in a recession. The softness in housing is despite favorable conditions elsewhere in the economy: strong job growth, a declining unemployment rate, continued low interest rates and positive consumer confidence.

Note: values reflect non-seasonally adjusted data, which are typically more appropriate for annual comparisons than monthly ones; however, due to heightened volatility in recent housing values that can skew the seasonal adjustments, S&P recommends using the non-seasonally adjusted numbers, even for month-to-month comparisons.

Source: S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices

The full press release and additional data can be found on the S&P website.

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