Though Chicago home prices did not show much change from February to March, they appear to be making yearly headwinds.

Though home prices in Chicago were flat from February to March in the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Indices from Standard & Poor’s, they showed considerable progress on a year-over-year basis, rising 7.8 percent.

Though Chicago has trailed the rest of the nation on the home-price radar, those are the strongest yearly increases in some time for the Windy City.

Double-Digit Fury in National Home Prices

On the national scale, home prices put up their best numbers yet in the housing recovery:

• For the 10- and 20-City Composites, which track some of the largest housing markets in the nation, home prices increased 10.3 and 10.9 percent, respectively, while both composites rose 1.4 percent from February to March.
• All 20 cities posted positive year-over-year growth.
• The national composite, meanwhile, increased by a hefty 10.2 percent, while prices are up 1.2 percent for the first quarter.

David M. Blitzer – “Housing Recovery is Not Complete”

David M. Blitzer, the chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said much of the news was positive with March’s Case-Shiller.

“Home prices continued to climb,” Blitzer said. “Home prices in all 20 cities posted annual gains for the third month in a row. Twelve of the 20
saw prices rise at double-digit annual growth. The National Index and the 10- and 20-City Composites posted their highest annual returns since 2006 … Other housing market data reported in recent weeks confirm these strong trends: housing starts and permits, sales of new home and existing homes continue to trend higher.”

However, Blitzer did caution that there remain lingering aspects of the housing downturn that the markets have not quite worked out yet.

“At the same time, the larger than usual share of multifamily housing, a large number of homes still in some stage of foreclosure and buying-to-rent by
investors suggest that the housing recovery is not complete.”