Portland metro home prices climb; April ends 10-month slowing streak

Home prices in the Portland area continued to edge higher in April, and their rate of growth held steady for a second month, snapping a 10-month slowing streak.

Metro home prices climbed 2.6% in April compared with a year earlier, according to the S&P/CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index. That’s the same rate of home-price growth the index reported last month, and it’s the slowest area home prices have climbed since 2012, just as the nation’s was rebounding from the collapsed housing bubble.

A broad slowdown in home prices has taken hold today across the country. California cities where home prices were skyrocketing are now seeing some of the slowest price growth in the country. Seattle, which led the nation’s price growth as recently as last year, saw no annual increase at all in April.

Las Vegas now has the fastest-growing prices in the nation, up 7.1% year-over-year, followed by Phoenix at 6% and Tampa at 5.6%. Nationally, home prices are growing at an annual rate of 3.5%.

The slowdown comes against the backdrop of an otherwise strong economy, suggesting the rapid climb of recent years -- which far exceeded growth in wages -- was simply unsustainable.

Some of the cities that saw the fastest growth in recent years began to fizzle on their own. That includes Portland, where median home prices had begun to exceed the amount an average local family could afford.

A spike in mortgage rates helped usher in a broad-based slowdown. The average rates for a 30-year fixed loan climbed a full percentage point, reaching nearly 5% in November, before retreating back below 4% in recent weeks.

The cooling trend has stuck so far, despite the return lower mortgage rates. Portland, however, saw a bump in May that brought metro home sales to their highest level in nearly two years.

The Case-Shiller index uses repeat sales of the same homes to measure changes in home value across the market. It uses a three-month rolling average to control for volatility.

Portland’s median home price in April was $405,000, according to the local listing service RMLS. It climbed to $420,000 in May.

-- Elliot Njus

enjus@oregonian.com; 503-294-5034; facebook.com/elliotnjus

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