US home values and rents defying global slowdown
Home values and rental prices are steadily rising, fueled by strong demand and a tight supply of available properties, a pair of reports Tuesday showed.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index climbed 5.1 percent in the 12 months that ended in August — a level many economists view as more sustainable than the sharp double-digit gains at the start of 2014.
[...] while three years of solid hiring and low mortgage rates have bolstered real estate, further gains will likely require better pay for workers.
[...] those high rental prices sparked some new construction, which has created more apartments and tempered the rental-price appreciation in recent months.
The housing market's overall gains are defying the impact of a sluggish global economy.
Falling commodity prices, weakened growth in China, a struggling Europe and tumult in emerging economies such as Brazil have hampered a world that is still battling its way out of the 2008 financial crisis.