US house prices rise in May, S&P says

Home prices in the U.S. rose in May, led by gains in the largest cities, the results of a closely watched survey showed.

In seasonally adjusted terms, S&P's Core Logic Case Shiller National Home Price Index increased at a month-on-month clip of 0.7%.

Meantime, prices in the 10 largest cities were up 1.1% and in the 20 biggest by 1.0%.

Year-on-year the HPI fell by 0.5%, after a dip of 0.1% in April (Bank of America: -1.0%).

The price index for the 10 largest cities slowed its annual rate of decline to -1.0% from -1.1% and the index for houses in the 20 largest cities fell by 1.7%, the same as during the previous month.

Chicago, Cleveland and New York sported the biggest annual increases in prices, of 4.6%, 3.9% and 3.5%, respectively.

Commenting after the relase of the latest house price figures, Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead US economist at Oxford Economics said: "Despite the May gains in home prices, we see limited upside for existing home prices as the year progresses given ongoing affordability challenges and as the economy enters a recession later this year.

"We expect annual home price growth by all measures to turn negative this quarter and to bottom-out at -5% around the beginning of 2024."