by Calculated Risk on 3/02/2018 08:58:00 AM

The Case-Shiller house price indexes for December were released on 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: December Case-Shiller Results and January Forecast: Why 2018 Looks A Lot Like 2017

The familiar patterns in the housing market that emerged in the second half of 2017 – lots of demand from home buyers, limited supply of homes available to buy, quickly rising prices and slow but steadily deteriorating affordability – are continuing to shape the start to 2018 as well.

Zillow predicts the S&P/Case-Shiller national index will show a 6.4 percent gain in national home prices in January, a slight increase from the 6.3 percent annual gain home prices posted for December. The December increase was greater than November’s 6.1 percent annual gain. Case-Shiller will release January data on Tuesday, March 27.

Case-Shiller’s 20-city composite index rose 6.3 percent year-over-year in December, a slight slowdown from November’s 6.4 percent annual growth. The 10-city composite index climbed 6 percent, the same rate as the prior month.

Among cities included in the 20-city index, Seattle, Las Vegas and San Francisco reported the highest year-over-year gains in December, at 12.7 percent, 11.1 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively.

The Zillow forecast is for the year-over-year change for the Case-Shiller National index to be slightly larger in January than in December.   Zillow is forecasting a smaller year-over-year increase for both the 10-city index, and the 20-city index in January.