US home prices edge higher in May

(Sharecast News) - Home prices in the States continued moving higher in May, but a bit more slowly than anticipated.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index jumped at a month-on-month pace of 1.1%, pushing the year-on-year rate of increase from 4.6% to 4.7%.

A separate index for the ten largest US cities meanwhile showed annual growth of 4.7%. the same as in April, while that for the largest 20 cities revealed an acceleration in price gains from 3.9% to 4.0%.

When compared with April, both the 10 and 20-city price indices registered increases of 0.3%, whereas economists had forecast an increase of 0.5% for the latter.

Phoenix (8.8%), Seattle (7.3%) and Minneapolis (6.4%) registered the largest price increases, with 12 of the 19 cities, excluding Detroit due to problems with data collection in the wake of the pandemic, registering home price inflation versus a year ago.

S&P added that "prices were particularly strong in the West and Southeast, and comparatively weak in the Northeast."