June home prices soar at record pace
WASHINGTON – U.S. home prices jumped by a record amount in June as homebuyers competed for a limited supply of available houses, the latest evidence that the housing market remains red-hot.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20city home price index soared 19.1% in June compared with a year earlier, the largest increase on records dating back to 2000. The annual price gains in June were higher in all 20 cities than they were in May. Prices are now at record highs in 19 of the 20 cities, with the exception of Chicago.
“The last several months have been extraordinary not only in the level of price gains, but in the consistency of gains across the country,” said Craig Lazzara, managing director of index investment strategy at S&P DJI.
There are signs that the high prices are cooling sales a bit. Sales of existing homes rose 1.5% in July from a year earlier, a separate report showed last week. That’s a much slower pace than the previous month. And the number of contracts signed to buy homes, a leading indicator of final sales, has fallen for two straight months.
Prices rose in June by the most in Phoenix, where they soared 29.3% compared with a year earlier, followed by San Diego, with a 27.1% increase.
The pandemic has driven many Americans to seek suburban homes that provide more space and are not as congested as apartments in big cities. Yet many other homeowners have been reluctant to sell, and the construction of new homes has slowed amid shortages of materials, land and labor.
That left just 1.32 million existing homes for sale in July, down 12% from a year earlier.