Denver Business Journal - by Mark Harden
Home prices in Denver rose in May for the third consecutive month, and the city scored the second-lowest year-over-year price decline of the 20 cities included in Standard & Poor's closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Index.
Released Tuesday, the index reveals how 20 cities are faring as the economy continues to batter the residential market.
Home prices in Denver rose 1.3 percent in May from the previous month, according to the index report. That follows a 1.5 percent rise in April and a 0.1 percent gain in March.
Denver prices fell by 1.7 percent in February and 2.7 percent in January.
Among the 20 cities in the S&P/Case-Shiller index, Cleveland saw by far the greatest month-to-month home price rise in May, 4.1 percent, followed by Dallas (1.9 percent) and Boston (1.6 percent). Denver was tied for the fifth-highest month-to-month price increase in May.
The greatest month-to-month price decline among the 20 cities was in Las Vegas (down 2.6 percent).
Denver home prices fell 4.6 percent in May from the same month in 2008, the index shows.
That's the second-smallest drop of the 20 cities in the index, bested only by Dallas' 4.1 percent year-over-year decline. Boston was No. 3 with a decline of 7.2 percent.
At the other extreme, home prices plummeted 34.2 percent in Phoenix between May 2008 and May 2009, the index showed. Other big year-over-year losers were Las Vegas (32 percent), San Francisco (26.1 percent) and Miami (25.2 percent).
The 20-city composite index shows home prices were up an average 0.5 percent in May from the previous month, and down 17.1 percent since May 2008.
Nationwide, "the pace of descent in home price values appears to be slowing, ... [but] we likely do have a way to go before we see sustained home price appreciation," David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, said in a statement.
The index is compiled by comparing matched-price pairs for thousands of single-family homes in each market. It is published by Standard & Poor’s and Fiserv Inc.
Click here to download the index in PDF format.
FirstAmerica CoreLogic home-price report, released July 22, also showed Denver outperforming the nation on home prices.
