by Calculated Risk on 6/28/2018 04:11:00 PM

The Case-Shiller house price indexes for April were released Tuesday. Zillow forecasts Case-Shiller a month early, and I like to check the Zillow forecasts since they have been pretty close.

From Aaron Terrazas at Zillow: April Case-Shiller Results and May Forecast: The New Normal

In a normal housing market, there is almost always a decently balanced pool of winners and losers. But as severely limited inventory continues to help push up home prices at a rapid clip, it’s clear that current housing trends are far from normal – and that there are a lot more losers right now than winners.

The U.S. National Case-Shiller Index rose 6.4 percent in April from a year ago, largely in line with expectations. April was the eighth straight month of annual appreciation of 6 percent or higher, and the longest such streak since a stretch of 19 months of breakneck appreciation that began in December 2012 as the housing market began to bounce back in earnest from the depths of the recession. Over the past 30-plus years, dating to January 1988, annual U.S. home price growth as measured by the Case Shiller National Index has averaged 3.8 percent.
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Looking ahead, rapid home value growth may slow somewhat, although not likely by much to make a difference in the underlying trends of high demand and low supply that are driving the market right now. Zillow expects the U.S. National Index to grow by 6.3 percent in May from a year ago, down only slightly from April. The 10- and 20-city indices are likely to slow down further. Full Case-Shiller data for May is scheduled for release Tuesday, July 31.

The Zillow forecast is for the year-over-year change for the Case-Shiller National index to be larger in March than in February.