Metro Atlanta home prices continued their positive momentum through the summer, according to the new Case-Shiller Home Price Indices from Standard & Poor’s.

Per S&P’s analysis, prices in the area were up 0.2 percent from July to August, and up 5.2 percent since Aug. 2015. Both stats are fairly routine to Metro Atlanta’s market, which for several months now has posted moderate  price growth on both yearly and monthly measures (although the markets monthly growth was a tad weaker than in the past).

Home prices rise nationwide

On the national scene, the housing market offered few surprises:

• The National Home Price NSA Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, rose 5.3 percent year-over-year in August, up from a 5 percent gain in July.
• Meanwhile, the 10- and 20-City Composites, which focus on specific metro areas, rose 4.3 and 5.1 percent, respectively; like the National Index, both composites were stronger in August than in July.
• Portland (up 11.7 percent), Seattle (11.4 percent) and Denver (8.8 percent) posted the strongest yearly increases in the country.
• On a monthly basis, the National Index was up 0.5 percent, while both composites rose 0.4 percent.

Housing v. stock market

In comments accompanying S&P’s report, David M. Blitzer, the managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, contrasted housing’s recovery with that of the stock market.

“Since the last recession ended in June 2009, the stock market as measured by the S&P 500 rose 136 percent to the end of August while home prices are up 23 percent. However, home prices did not reach bottom until February 2012, almost three years later,” Blitzer explained. “Using the 2012 date as the starting point, home prices are up 38 percent compared to 59 percent for stocks. While the stock market recovery has been greater than the rebound in home prices, the value of Americans’ homes at about $22.3 trillion is slightly larger than the value of stocks and mutual funds at $21.2 trillion.”