March 31--Chicago-area home prices declined in January for the fifth consecutive month but they remained 2.5 percent ahead of where they were a year earlier, according a barometer of the housing market's health, released Tuesday.
The S/Case-Shiller home price index found that local prices slipped 0.2 percent in January, compared with December, following a 0.8 percent drop in December. Month over month, home values have been declining since August.
Nationally, the index posted its fifth monthly decline. Among the 20 cities included in the index, only San Francisco, Miami and Denver recorded gains of 0.5 percent or more from December. Compared with a year ago, January home prices were up 4.5 percent.
Those cities also are on the list of metropolitan areas with the largest annualized gains. Meanwhile, Chicago's 2.5 percent year-over-year gain in January topped the gains posted by Cleveland, Minneapolis, New York and Washington, D.C.
"Regional patterns in recent months continue -- strength in the West and Southwest paced by Denver and Dallas with results ahead of the national index in the California cities, the Pacific Northwest and Las Vegas," said David Blitzer, chairman of S Dow Jones Indices' index committee. "The Northeast and Midwest are mostly weaker than the national index."
mepodmolik@tribpub.com
