The 20-city S&P Case-Shiller house price index for March climbed 10.87% on the year. This beat expectations for a 10.2% rise.

This is also the fastest pace of increase since April 2006.

February’s number was revised up modestly to show a 9.35% rise.

On the month home prices were up 1.12%, above expectations for a 1% rise. February’s number was also revised up on a monthly basis to show a 1.32% rise.

Q1 home prices were up 10.17% on the year, beating expectations for a 9.6% rise. Q4’s number was revised down modestly to show a 7.25% rise.

Both the 10 and 20-city home price indices are about 28 – 29% off their June/July 2006 peaks.

“Phoenix again had the largest annual increase at 22.5% followed by San Francisco with 22.2% and Las Vegas with 20.6%. Miami and Tampa, the eastern end of the Sunbelt, were softer with annual gains of 10.7% and 11.8%. The weakest annual price gains were seen in New York (+2.6%), Cleveland (+4.8%) and Boston (+6.7%); even these numbers are quite substantial.”