Chart of the Day: US house price inflation up by up to 25%

I thought this chart was a good one. It shows how quickly house prices have recovered in a number of markets. WHile DC and LA are the areas where the Case-Shiller index is at its highest, over the last year, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix and San Francisco are the markets that have seen the highest appreciation in house prices.  Phoenix, Las Vegas and SanFrancisco were some of the hardest hit markets as well. Meanwhile, Georgia was the state with the highest number of bank failures in the United States. So we could just be seeing reversion to the mean. But it could also be something different.

In places like San Francisco, purchase price inflation is coinciding with major increases in rental prices. 

Overall, house price inflation at 12.2% y-o-y is at its highest level since May 2006. This has underpinned the US economy.. In a few moments, we will also post a view from Sober Look that details some of the downsides to the rapid uptick in house prices (link now here).