NEW YORK — Home prices rose in May — the second straight month — as federal tax incentives pulled more buyers into the market.
The Standard & Poor’s/ Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, released Tuesday, posted a 1.3 percent increase in May from April.
Nineteen of 20 cities showed price gains month over month.
Minneapolis and Atlanta led the way with 2.8 percent and 2 percent increases, respectively. And San Diego posted its 13th straight monthly gain. Denver posted a 0.6 percent month-over-month gain and a 3.6 percent increase compared with the same month a year ago.
“In May, there was still a lot of activity related to first-time homebuyers,” said Gary Bauer, a Denver-based independent real estate consultant. “Denver is a unique market unto itself. We’re still doing extremely well, relatively speaking.”
Only Las Vegas recorded a price decline. The metro area hit a new record low in May. Home prices there have lost 56.4 percent of their value since peaking in August 2006.
And while Detroit recorded a 0.7 percent increase from April, the average home price there is about same as it was in 1994.
Overall, the gains underscore the impact of the government’s homebuying tax credits. Buyers rushed to purchase before the credits expired at the end of April. The index is an average of home sales in March, April and May.
May is typically a strong month for selling homes. Most economists don’t expect the price gains to last through the year, and many predict home prices will fall through the rest of the year.
Denver Post staff writer Margaret Jackson contributed to this report.
