US home prices jumped the most in 7 years in December as the housing-market boom charged into the new year, Case-Shiller says.

“The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index posted a 10.4% annualized increase in December, according to a Tuesday press release. The gain follows a 9.4% annualized climb in November and marks the biggest single-month leap in seven years seen by the index, a leading national dataset.”

“Still, the US housing market will likely thrive through 2021 as more forthcoming stimulus bolsters homebuying activity, Fitch analysts led by Suzanne Mistretta said in a February 16 note. The firm said it expects prices and mortgage volume to continue growing in 2021 due to consistently low borrowing costs and lasting supply constraints”

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“From December 2020 to January 2021 the one-month appreciation, an annualized 7.5 percent rate, was the slowest recorded since August 2020. Historically, home prices have come under pressure during periods of economic stress as foreclosure sales and other distressed transactions add discounted properties into the inventory. During the Great Recession, monthly volume of sold properties that were considered distressed peaked at nearly 82,500 units (March 2011) and represented more than 43 percent of all sales that month. In contrast, January 2021 recorded the lowest ever number of distressed sales transactions, at 11,212 units. The tally represented just 4.9 percent of total sales for the month. This lack of distressed supply is a marked difference from prior periods of economic stress.”

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