Home prices in San Diego fell 0.2 percent in September from the month before, but were up 7.9 percent from the same month last year, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released last week.
The annual increase continued to slow. As recently as June, the year-over-year hikes in home prices in San Diego were in double-digits.
The indices were created by taking the price of homes in the 20 largest real estate markets in January 2000 and assigning them a value of 100. The indices track their subsequent rise and fall.
In September, San Diego’s figure was 203.31, representing more than a doubling of property values in about 15 years. That’s the third-fastest climb in the United States, behind Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
The index of the top 20 cities combined in September was 173.72, unchanged from the month before and 4.9 percent higher than last year. An index of the 10 largest cities stood at 188.68, the same as August and 4.8 percent higher than September 2013.
David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said the results show that annual gains are slowing all over the country. He said 18 of the 20 cities in the index reported slower annual gains in September compared to the previous month.
“Other housing statistics paint a mixed to slightly positive picture,” Blitzer said. “Housing starts held above one million at annual rates on gains in single-family homes, sales of existing homes are gaining, builders’ sentiment is improving, foreclosures continue to be worked off and mortgage default rates are at pre-crisis levels.”
He said that since the economy looks better than a year ago, the housing outlook for 2015 is stable to slightly better.
