(Photo: REUTERS)
U.S. single-family home prices rose in July on a year-over-year basis but fell short of expectations, the S&P/Case Shiller composite index reported Thursday. The survey of 20 metropolitan areas increased 6.7 percent in July year over year, missing economists’ expectations of a 7.5 percent gain.
On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, prices in the 20 cities actually fell 0.5 percent in the month of July. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the reading would hold steady.
Non-seasonally adjusted prices rose 0.6 percent in the 20 cities on a monthly basis, also a disappointing miss of expectations for a 1.1 percent rise.
“The broad-based deceleration in home prices continued in the most recent data,” David Blitzer, the chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices said in a statement.
“While the year-over-year figures are trending downward, home prices are still rising month-to-month although at a slower rate than what we are used to seeing over the past couple of years.”
A new, supposedly broader measure of the housing market that S&P/Case-Shiller is now releasing on a monthly basis rose at a slower pace year over year. The reading came in at 5.6 percent.
The seasonally adjusted 10-city gauge dropped 0.5 percent in July compared to a 0.2 percent decline in June, and the non-adjusted 10-city index ticked up 0.6 percent in July juxtaposed to a 1.0 percent rise in June.
Year over year, the 10-city gauge rose 6.7 percent.
