WASHINGTON: U.S. home prices rose again in October as buyers bidding for scarce properties drove prices higher.
The Standard & Poor’s CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 5.1% in October from a year earlier after rising 5 % in September. Prices for the 20 cities are still 7.1% below their July 2006 peak.
Prices rose 10.7 percent annually in Seattle, 10.3 percent in Portland and 8.3 percent in Denver. New York registered the smallest year-over-year gain: 1.7 percent.
Home sales and prices have been helped by healthy demand, tight supplies and low mortgage rates. But the cheap loans may be vanishing. The rate on the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage last week reached 4.30 percent, the highest since April 2014.
Source: AP