Of the 100 largest metros in the United States, 75 now have home prices above the peak reached before last decade’s housing crash, according to the latest update to the Home Price Recovery Index from HSH.com.
And metro Denver continues to hold the top spot, something it has done in every quarter but one since the index launched in 2015.
Home prices in Denver-Aurora-Lakewood are 91% above the old high. Runners up include Austin, Texas, with an 81.4% increase and San Francisco, up 73.5%.
“Aside from routinely strong home price appreciation, it’s important to know that the Denver metro’s housing ‘bust’ was relatively short and shallow,” said Keith Gumbinger, the report’s author.
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The peak-to-trough for home values was only three years long and the total decline in value was just under 8 percent in metro Denver, he said.
By contrast, a half-dozen large metros have seen home prices more than double from their lows and still not reach the old highs. On that list are Las Vegas, Sacramento, Calif., and Cape Coral, Fla.
“A short term, relatively small drop meant a sooner start on recovery and less ground to make up,” Gumbinger said of Denver.
Yet, metro Denver has also managed to outperform Texas metros when it comes to home price gains, which also didn’t get carried away in the housing boom and had strong migration.
The difference appears to be that Texas is doing a much better job of building homes than Colorado, according to a count of permit activity.
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Metro Denver’s inadequate supply has put pressure on surrounding markets. Colorado Springs in the second quarter broke into the top 10 metros for its home price recovery, with a 45.8% gain above the pre-crash high.
A year ago, Colorado Springs ranked 13th for the size of its recovery, and two years earlier, it was 20th.
Whether robust home price gains are a good thing depends on if someone already owns a home or wants to own one. And there are more signs emerging that the trend could shift the other way.
In three of the 100 metros, home prices are down year-over-year, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Home Price Index. They include Seattle, Oxnard, Calif., and Frederick, M.D.
And in 21 of the largest 100 metros, quarter-over-quarter declines were measured, even though it was the peak selling season. Time may be running out for those markets that have yet to summit the prior peak, Humbinger said.
