HOME PRICES ROSE IN OCT. AT 8.3% ANNUAL PACE
Metro Denver, as it has done for most of the year, ranked third among the country’s largest cities for its annual pace of home price appreciation in October, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices.
Metro Denver home prices rose at an 8.3 percent annual pace in October, behind Seattle at 10.7 percent and Portland, Ore., at 10.3 percent. It marks the ninth consecutive month that Seattle, Portland and Denver have held the top three spots on the closely-watched measure of housing inflation.
Nationally, home prices across the 20 large metros that the indices track rose 5.1 percent, on par with the pace seen in recent months. The weakest pace of home price gains occurred in New York and Washington, D.C.
David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said high consumer confidence and low unemployment rates suggest home prices aren’t likely to make a sudden reversal, despite the rise in mortgage interest rates since the election in November.
“Nevertheless, home prices cannot rise faster than incomes and inflation indefinitely,” he cautioned in the report.