US house prices in March were up 10.9 percent from a year earlier, making it the largest gain in nearly seven years, according to report released on Monday
The new Case-Shiller house price index with data through March 2013 is out today (PDF) and the news is that home prices soared 10.9 percent year-over-year. All 20 cities tracked by the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller home price index posted year-over-year gains, as they have done for three consecutive months now.
The 20-city composite index rose 10.9 percent over the last year. That is the biggest annual increase since April 2006. Several cities - Charlotte, N.C.; Los Angeles; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Tampa, Fla. - had their largest month-over-month gains in more than seven years.
Separate data showed that house prices rose in the 12 months through March by the most in seven years as the recovery in residential real estate gained momentum. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values increased 10.9 percent from March 2012, the biggest 12-month gain since April 2006, after advancing 9.4 percent in February.
"We've been sort of pleasantly surprised by the resilience of consumption at the beginning of the year," said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan Chase, the New York Times noted. "Spending has been doing quite well, at least for this expansion, over the first half of the year, due in part to these wealth effects."
The positive impact of rising home values and the appreciating stock market is expected to offset "at least a third of the fiscal tightening," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisors.