NEW YORK – Home prices in the United States continue to see significant increases, with an industry report Tuesday saying that they were up more than 20% over the past 12 months.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index said home prices were up 20.6% over the past 12 months that ended in March – the highest rate in more than three decades. The year-over-year average is slightly above the 20% gain in February, the index said.

The annual increase for the index’s national 10-city composite was 19.5% in March, which was up from 18.7% in February – and the 20-city composite showed a 21.2% year-to-year increase, up from 20.3% the month before.

Tampa (34.8%), Phoenix (32.4%) and Miami (32.0%) showed large annual increases among the 20-city index.

“Those of us who have been anticipating a deceleration in the growth rate of U.S. home prices will have to wait at least a month longer,” Craig Lazzara, managing director of the S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “For both national and 20-city composites, March’s reading was the highest year-over-year price change in more than 35 years of data, with the 10-city growth rate at the 99th percentile of its own history.”

Lazzara said 17 cities in the 20-city index showed increases, a signal that the housing market has not yet been affected by the Federal Reserve’s boosting key interest rates.

“Mortgages are becoming more expensive as the Federal Reserve has begun to ratchet up interest rates, suggesting that the macroeconomic environment may not support extraordinary home price growth for much longer,” Lazzara added.

“Although one can safely predict that price gains will begin to decelerate, the timing of the deceleration is a more difficult call.”

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