Home prices across the nation’s largest 20 largest metropolitan areas posted their largest annual gain in seven years, rising 10.9 in the first quarter of 2013, compared to the same period last year, according to the latest real estate market trends reported today by Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

The largest yearly increases were seen in Phoenix (22.5 percent), San Francisco (22.2 percent) and Las Vegas (20.6 percent), said David M. Blitzer Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement analyzing the latest real estate market trends. The slowest – yet still substantial – gains were seen in New York (2.6 percent), Cleveland (4.8 percent) and Boston (6.7 percent).

Additional indicators, including housing starts, new permits, and new and existing home sales, add to the growing evidence that the housing market is healing, but other real estate market trends indicate the recovery has a ways to go, Blitzer said. “The larger than usual share of multi-family housing, a large number of homes still in some stage of foreclosure and buying-to-rent by investors suggest that the housing recovery is not complete,” he said.

Townhomes account for an increasing share of the existing market, as well as new housing activity, according to a blog on the latest real estate market trends published today by the National Association of Home Builders, a trade association based in Washington, D.C.

Construction began on 15,000 new townhomes in the first quarter of 2013, up from 10,000 in the first quarter of 2012, according to the association. Over the same period, the market share of town homes rose from 10.4 percent to 12.7 percent.

Real Estate Market Trends: Prices Gain Nearly 11 Percent | Millionaire Corner.