Housing continued to exceed expectations, even during the winter months when demand tends to cool down. With existing home sales up over 20% from a year ago, the CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index clocked a 9.49% surge in November – a new high since February 2014.

New record lows for mortgage rates helped lure in home buyers. At the same time, inventory of for-sale homes took the usual seasonal dip, falling to only about 1.4 million homes in October — which is when November sales were likely first signed.

According to CoreLogic Buyer/Seller Market Indicator, which measures the ratio between sold price and list price, buyer competition reached a new peak nationally in October and November when the ratio climbed to 0.996 — the highest level since 2008, when the data series began. The high ratio suggests home sellers were generally getting their asking price.

The 10 and 20 city composite indexes were also up considerably, up 8.76% and 9.08% year over year, respectively. Both indices continue to surge at the fastest pace since early 2014 when home prices were experiencing a similar rush.

Phoenix, which continues to be the city with fastest home price growth for the 17th consecutive month, surged another 13.8% in home prices in November. Seattle remained in second place, with an annual increase of 12.7%. The city also had the largest acceleration in index growth compared to a year ago — up 9.4 percentage points. Even Chicago (up 7.5%) and New York (up 8.2%), which started off at the bottom of the pack in 2020, were outpacing some cities. Las Vegas, with a 6.8% annual increase, is now showing the slowest rate of acceleration in the group.

While reaching new peaks, November’s national home prices were 26% higher than the previous peak. Four cities continued to remain below their previous peak, namely Las Vegas, Chicago, Miami and Phoenix. While Phoenix has been experiencing 17 straight months of the strongest increases, it has yet to reach its previous pre-Great Recession peak. Las Vegas is still 11% below its previous peak.

Homes in the lower one-third of the price distribution overall continue to experience the strongest acceleration, partly due to competing demand from buyers, as well as exceptionally low inventories. The average growth among medium-tier priced homes was 10.3%, and highest-tier prices were up 9% on average.

Source: Corelogic