Today, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) released August 2016 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 August 2016 index value was 138.27 before seasonal adjustment; this translates to a 38.27 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 Chicago, the index increased 4.1 percent from 132.87 in August 2015 to 138.27 in August 2016 (a slight increase over last month’s YOY growth rate of 3.7 percent).
• Chicago’s August 2016 home price level also increased by 0.5 percent from the previous month, outpacing the 0.4 percent growth rate of both the 10-City and the 20-City Composite.
• In a press release, Standard & Poor’s Index Committee Managing Director and Chairman David M. Blitzer affirmed that “supported by continued moderate economic growth, home prices extended recent gains.” He also compared the housing recovery with the stock market recovery and concluded, “while the stock market recovery has been greater than the rebound in home prices, the value of Americans’ homes at about $22.3 trillion is slightly larger than the value of stocks and mutual funds at $21.2 trillion.”

The following charts illustrate home price comparison and trends.

 

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

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

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