Chicago continued to trail the pack in the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Index.

Home prices in the Chicagoland metro area put up disappointing numbers in the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, falling 0.9 percent from November to December and rising just 1.3 percent from Dec. 2013.

Not only was Chicagoland’s monthly decline the largest in the nation, but its yearly increase was also the smallest in the nation. Granted, such trends are not necessarily bad for housing; after all, housing nationwide is in the throes of an affordability crisis, so it may be an implicitly good thing that Chicagoland home prices are not soaring by huge amounts.

Modest Price Increases Nationwide

Nationwide, the situation was a modest (albeit positive) one:

• Both the 10- and 20-City Composites, which track most of the nation’s largest housing markets, rose 4.3 and 4.5 percent year-over-year, respectively; both increases are stronger than November’s yearly increases.
• Both composites were even positive monthly, rising 0.1 percent from November to December.
• Overall, nine cities saw higher monthly figures, compared with six seeing negative figures and five seeing flat numbers.

Blitzer – “Housing Recovery is Faltering”

David M. Blitzer, the managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said that despite December’s price increases, other sectors of housing are showing clear weakness.

“The housing recovery is faltering,” Blitzer said. “While prices and sales of existing homes are close to normal, construction and new home sales remain weak. Before the current business cycle, any time housing starts were at their current level of about one million at annual rates, the economy was in a recession. The softness in housing is despite favorable conditions elsewhere in the economy: strong job growth, a declining unemployment rate, continued low interest rates and positive consumer confidence.”