Home prices in the Chicago area in March didn’t budge much from their February levels but remain up almost 7.8 percent from a year ago, a good sign for homeowners who are considering putting their homes on the market this spring.
The S&P;/Case-Shiller home price index, a three-month moving average of home prices, found that home prices nudged up only .01 percent in March. Still, the performance ended six consecutive month–over-month declines for the widely watched index.
Nationally, home prices in March were at their mid-2003 levels. The index’s measure of the nation’s 20 largest cities showed a 10.9 percent year-over-year increase in home values in March. The three cities with the largest annualized gains were Phoenix, up 22.5 percent; San Francisco, up 22.2 percent; and Las Vegas, where March home prices rose 20.6 percent from a year ago.
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