Home prices declined from October to November in half of the markets tracked by the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite index, but prices in every market but New York were up on an annual basis.
All in all, the 20-City Composite was down 0.1 percent from October to November on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, but up 5.5 percent from a year ago.
"Winter is usually a weak period for housing which explains why we now see about half the cities with falling month-to-month prices compared to 20 out of 20 seeing rising prices last summer," David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. "The better annual price changes also point to seasonal weakness rather than a reversal in the housing market."
Blitzer said "housing is clearly recovering," citing strong sales of new and existing homes in November.
In the 12 months through November, home prices rose in 19 of the 20 markets in the 20-City Composite, with New York (-1.2 percent) the only market to see a decline. Phoenix topped the chart with a 22.8 percent annual increase, followed by San Francisco (12.7 percent), Detroit (11.9 percent) and Las Vegas (10.0 percent).
The 10 markets experiencing a non-seasonally adjusted monthly price decline were Chicago (-1.3 percent), New York (-1.1 percent), Boston (-0.9 percent), Cleveland (-0.8 percent), Washington (-0.6 percent), Charlotte (-0.3 percent), Detroit (-0.3 percent), Portland (-0.2 percent), Tampa (-0.2 percent) and Dallas (-0.1 percent).
If seasonal factors are taken into account, only the New York market a month-over-month decline.
Markets seeing non-seasonally adjusted gains from October to November were San Francisco (up 1.4 percent), Phoenix (1.4 percent), Minneapolis (1.0 percent), San Diego (0.9 percent), Miami (0.8 percent), Seattle (0.5 percent), Los Angeles (0.4 percent), Las Vegas (0.4 percent), Denver (0.4 percent) and Atlanta (0.1 percent).
S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite, by market
| Metro area | November 2012 index level | Change from October to November* | Change from year ago |
| Atlanta | 95.68 | 0.1% | 7.6% |
| Boston | 153.74 | -0.9% | 2.3% |
| Charlotte | 115.41 | -0.3% | 5.1% |
| Chicago | 113.35 | -1.3% | 0.8% |
| Cleveland | 100.68 | -0.8% | 1.8% |
| Dallas | 120.55 | -0.1% | 5.7% |
| Denver | 134.50 | 0.4% | 7.8% |
| Detroit | 80.33 | -0.3% | 11.9% |
| Las Vegas | 100.56 | 0.4% | 10.0% |
| Los Angeles | 176.58 | 0.4% | 7.7% |
| Miami | 151.13 | 0.8% | 9.9% |
| Minneapolis | 126.41 | 1.0% | 11.1% |
| New York | 162.86 | -1.1% | -1.2% |
| Phoenix | 124.16 | 1.4% | 22.8% |
| Portland | 142.13 | -0.2% | 6.7% |
| San Diego | 163.58 | 0.9% | 8.0% |
| San Francisco | 146.23 | 1.4% | 12.7% |
| Seattle | 142.53 | 0.5% | 7.4% |
| Tampa | 133.77 | -0.2% | 6.8% |
| Washington | 189.11 | -0.6% | 4.4% |
| Composite-20 | 145.82 | -0.1% | 5.5% |
* Non-seasonally adjusted. Index value of 100 equals prices in January 2000. Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices.
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