Dec. 29--Home prices recorded a larger monthly decline in October in the Chicago area than in any of the nation's 20 largest housing markets and remained only 1.3 percent ahead of their 2014 pace, according to a widely watched housing barometer released Tuesday.
The monthly S/Case-Shiller home price index showed a 0.7 percent decline in local home prices in October, following a 0.4 percent drop in September. That put the Chicago-area housing market on par with where it stood in June 2003, pre-housing bubble. Compared with a decade ago, home prices were down almost 2 percent.
Chicago-area condominium prices were relatively flat in October compared with September and were up 4.6 percent from October 2014.
Nationally, home prices posted a 0.1 percent gain in October from September and were up 5.2 percent year-over-year. Chicago's 1.3 percent annualized gain was also the smallest of the 20 cities included in the index, paling in comparison to other cities.
Leading the gains were Denver, San Francisco and Portland, each with a year-over-year home price increase of 10.9 percent. The second-lowest improvement was recorded in Washington, where home prices rose 1.7 percent year-over-year.
The index is a rolling three-month average of home prices, as opposed to raw data reported monthly by the Illinois Association of Realtors. Last week, that group said the median price of a home sold in the Chicago area during November rose 7.9 percent.
