Denver Business Journal by Mark Harden, New Media Editor

Date: Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 3:48pm MDT

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Mark Harden

New Media Editor - Denver Business Journal

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For the first time in 19 months, metro Denver posted a year-over-year increase in home prices in January, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Index.

It was a small increase, up just 0.2 percent from January 2011, according to the closely-followed report from Standard & Poor’s    . Still, Denver was one of only three cities out the 20 tracked by the report to show a year-over-year price rise.

The average for the 20 cities was a decline of 3.8 percent. The only other cities with year-over-year gains were Detroit (up 1.7 percent) and Phoenix (up 1.3 percent).

Metro Denver’s January gain followed small year-over-year declines of 0.4 percent in December 2011 and 0.2 percent in November 2011.

Before that, year-over-year price declines in the area had ranged from 0.9 percent to 4.1 percent going back to July 2010. (See the table at the end of this article for data on year-over-year price changes in Denver for the last few years.)

As for month-to-month changes, prices in Denver rose 0.7 percent from December 2011 to January 2011, seasonally adjusted, following December’s 0.1 percent increase from November, the Case-Shiller report said.

(Not seasonally adjusted, Denver prices fell 0.6 percent in January from December and were down 0.9 percent in December from November.)

January’s month-to-month average price change for all 20 cities in the report was flat, seasonally adjusted, and down 0.8 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

The prices are for resales of stand-alone single-family homes only, not for new construction or condominiums.

The Case-Shiller report assigns index values to the 20 cities based on current average home prices in relation to what they were in January 2000.

Denver’s index for January was 122.92, meaning that prices were 22.92 percent higher than they were in January 2000. The 20-city average index was 135.46.

The Case-Shiller index is compiled by comparing matched-price pairs for thousands of single-family homes in each market. Standard & Poor’s and Fiserv Inc.    publish it.

> Click here to download the latest S&P/Case-Shiller report.

Case-Shiller is one of several popular measures of home prices, using different methodologies, covering different housing types and geographical areas, and giving somewhat different results.

A report March 8 from CoreLogic said home prices, including distressed sales, in the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield area were up 1.1 percent in January from the same month a year earlier, following a 0.1 percent year-over-year rise in December.

Denver area year-over-year home price changes from Case-Shiller

Here are year-over-year price changes in the Denver area from the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Index report for recent months:

• January 2011: Up 0.2 percent.
• December 2011: Down 0.4 percent.
• November 2011: Down 0.2 percent.
• October 2011: Down 0.9 percent.
• September 2011: Down 1.5 percent.
• August 2011: Down 1.6 percent.
• July 2011: Down 2.1 percent.
• June 2011: Down 2.5 percent.
• May 2011: Down 3.3 percent.
• April 2011: Down 4.1 percent.
• March 2011: Down 3.8 percent.
• February 2011: Down 2.6 percent.
• January 2011: Down 2.3 percent.
• December 2010: Down 2.4 percent.
• November 2010: Down 2.5 percent.
• October 2010: Down 1.8 percent.
• September 2010: Down 1.6 percent.
• August 2010: Down 1.2 percent.
• July 2010: Down 0.1 percent.

Each month from October 2009 through June 2010, the Case-Shiller report showed year-over-year increases in Denver-area home prices. That ended in July 2010.

Before October 2009, Denver saw 36 straight months of year-over-year price declines, peaking at a 5.7 percent drop in February 2009 from the year before.