U.S. home prices surged to a new peak in March 2024, recording the highest annual growth rate in over a year.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index - a key gauge to track the home prices of typical single-family units in the U.S. - increased by 7.4% year-on-year, notching the highest rise since October 2022 and surpassing market expectations of 7.3%.

This marked the ninth consecutive month of rising home prices.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which encompasses all nine U.S. census divisions, recorded a 6.5% annual gain in March, matching the increase from the previous month.

The 10-City Composite saw an annual increase of 8.2%, up from 8.1% in February.

Notably, all metropolitan areas recorded a positive monthly growth in March. Among the 20 cities tracked:

• San Diego reported the highest year-over-year gain with an 11.1% increase in March.
• New York and Cleveland followed with increases of 9.2% and 8.8%, respectively.
• Denver maintained the lowest rank for year-over-year growth but reported a steady 2.1% annual increase for the third consecutive month.

Overall, U.S. house prices have soared by 136% from the trough seen in 2012 and are 71.5% higher than the 2006 peak.

For the 20-City Composite, prices have surged by 142.5% from the 2012 trough and by 57.4% from the 2006 peak.

The 10-City Composite has increased by 133.4% from the 2012 trough and by 51.0% from the 2006 peak.

Expert's Take

Brian D. Luke, head of commodities, real & digital assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices, emphasized the robust performance of the housing market.

"This month's report boasts another all-time high. We've witnessed records repeatedly break in both stock and housing markets over the past year. Our National Index has reached new highs in six of the last 12 months," he said. "During that time, we've seen record stock market performance, with the S&P 500 hitting fresh all-time highs for 35 trading days in the past year."

Among the highlights:

• San Diego's impressive 11.1% annual gain is a standout
• New York and Los Angeles make up about 30% of the 20-City Composite and have shown significant recovery, matching the national composite annualized return of 9.9% since 2020.
• San Francisco and Seattle have not yet fully recovered from their previous highs, being 9.7% and 8.2% lower than their May 2022 peaks, respectively.
• The Northeast region remains the top performer with an 8.3% annual gain.
• Tampa, Phoenix, and Dallas experienced significant growth in 2020 and 2021; they now show slower growth rates.
• "COVID was a boom for Sunbelt markets, but the bigger gains the last couple of years have been the northern metro cities," Luke stated.

Both the Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLRE  ) and the Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ  ) rose 0.8% Tuesday, outperforming all other S&P 500's sectors excluding energy.

Stock-wise, the best performers were Redfin Corp. (RDFN  ), eXp World Holdings, Inc. (EXPI  ) and Orion Office REIT Inc. (ONL  ) with gains of 4.5%, 4.2% and 3.1%, respectively.