Seattle-area home prices kept climbing in September, according to the closely watched Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index.
Prices were up 4.8 percent from September 2011, setting yet another post-bubble record. August’s 3.4 percent year-over-year gain had been the previous high.
Seattle-area prices now have increased year-over-year for five straight months, according to Case-Shiller.
The numbers are for the Seattle metropolitan area – King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. The September statistics, the most recent available, were released Tuesday. Seattle prices also increased 0.3 percent between August and September, reversing a 0.1 percent decline from July to August.
Nationally, Case-Shiller’s 20-city composite index was up 0.3 percent month-over-month and 3 percent year-over-year. Eighteen of the 20 metropolitan areas Case-Shiller tracks saw prices rise from September 2011 levels, with only Chicago and New York experiencing declines. Prices increased in 13 cities between August and September, led by 1.4 percent increases in Las Vegas and San Diego. “It is safe to say that we are now in the midst of a recovery in the housing market,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
The Seattle area’s Case-Shiller score for September was 142.09, meaning prices were 42.09 percent higher than in January 2000. The metropolitan area’s high, 192.30, came in July 2007.
The region’s lowest score since the real-estate bubble burst, 128.99, occurred in February. Since then prices have risen a little more than 10 percent.
But, despite those gains, Seattle’s September Case-Shiller score still is lower than it was from March 2005 to October 2010 — a stretch of more than five years.
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