Home prices up in May from April

U.S. home prices rose April to May, the second consecutive month of gains, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller report said Tuesday. Home prices rose 2.2 percent in both the 10-city and 20-city indexes after rising 1.3 percent in both indexes in April, which was the first rise in seven months. On an annual basis, prices are still off, showing a 1 percent decline in the 10-city index and a 0.7 percent decline in the 20-city index. In April, the annual decline for the larger index stood at 1.5 percent. Atlanta is the only city with double-digit annual declines with its pricing index off 14.5 percent. "However, this is an improvement over the minus 17 percent annual decline in April," the report said. "With May's data, we saw a continuing trend of rising home prices for the spring," said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices.