U.S. home prices continued to increase in August, Cas...

Residential property prices in the U.S. rose by 0.4% in August, and were up 5.1% compared with the corresponding month last year, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City index.

In the three months ending in August, 10 cities in the 20-City composite index saw higher annual property price increases compared with July, led by gains in Portland, Seattle and Denver.

Case-Shiller’s national index is now just 0.1% below its 2006 peak, while the smaller 20-City index (below) is 7.2% lower.

Metro	Monthly Change	12-Month Change
Atlanta	0.2%	5.2%
Boston	0.3%	4.1%
Charlotte	0.4%	5.8%
Chicago	0.5%	4.1%
Cleveland	0.1%	2.9%
Dallas	0.5%	8.1%
Denver	0.3%	8.8%
Detroit	0.4%	5.7%
Las Vegas	0.1%	5.3%
Los Angeles	0.4%	5.8%
Miami	0.4%	7.1%
Minneapolis	0.5%	5.2%
New York	0.6%	1.7%
Phoenix	0.6%	5.2%
Portland	0.4%	11.7%
San Diego	0.1%	5.8%
San Francisco	0.4%	6.7%
Seattle	0.5%	11.4%
Tampa	0.6%	7.6%
Washington	0.4%	2.3%

“All 20 cities saw prices higher than a year earlier with 10 enjoying larger annual gains than last month,” David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said.

Tight inventory has continued to place upward pressure on home prices across many parts of the country, with the volume of homes for sale having dropped by almost 7% from a year ago to just 2.04 million, according to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Despite the fall in existing housing supply, NAR figures show that sales of existing U.S. homes rose by 3.2% in September from August, suggesting that demand for property is continuing to grow despite uncertainty around the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

“Demand is high and enthusiasm for homeownership remains strong, especially among all-important young, minority and would-be first-time buyers,” said Svenja Gudell, chief economist at real estate data provider Zillow.