WASHINGTON
U.S. home prices have fully recovered from their steep plunge during the housing bust and Great Recession, according to a private measure.
The Standard & Poor’s CoreLogic Case- Shiller national home price index is slightly above the peak it set in July 2006, after rising 5.5 percent in September from a year earlier. The milestone comes after more than four years of steady gains.
Still, prices have not fully recovered in many cities and other gauges show that home prices remain below their peaks.
Steady job gains and low mortgage rates have encouraged more Americans to buy homes. Yet the supply of available properties has dwindled, setting off bidding wars and pushing up prices at a rapid pace.
Seattle, Portland and Denver reported the largest annual gains in September for the eighth straight month.
“The new peak set by the S&P Case-Shiller CoreLogic national index will be seen as marking a shift from the housing recovery to the hoped-for start of a new advance,” said David Blitzer, of S&P Dow Jones Indices.
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