Published: Mar 27, 2018 9:00 a.m. ET

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After a lull, San Francisco is back to being one of the top three hottest markets

Bloomberg News/Landov

A home for sale in Seattle, Wash., one of the nation’s hottest housing markets.

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The numbers: The S&P/Case-Shiller national index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.5% in the three-month period ending in January, and was up 6.2% compared to a year before. The 20-city index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.8% for the month, and 6.4% for the year.

What happened: Prices are still on fire. And the West is still the best: Seattle, Las Vegas and San Francisco all notched double-digit yearly price gains. Only one city, Washington, D.C., had a negative monthly reading.

As David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, noted in a release, the price gains are all about demand and lack of supply.

“The current months-supply — how many months at the current sales rate would be needed to absorb homes currently for sale — is 3.4; the average since 2000 is 6.0 months, and the high in July 2010 was 11.9,” Blitzer wrote. “Currently, the homeowner vacancy rate is 1.6% compared to an average of 2.1% since 2000; it peaked in 2010 at 2.7%. Despite limited supplies, rising prices and higher mortgage rates, affordability is not a concern.”

Relatively affordable housing is cold comfort to many would-be home buyers who simply can’t find anything to buy.

Read: Most house hunters have been searching for 3 months or more

Big picture: Economists had forecast a 0.7% monthly increase, and a 6.2% 12-month increase, for the 20-city index. As MarketWatch has reported, most housing analysts have argued that the ongoing price gains in housing can’t last — and yet they have so far.

Metro | Monthly change | 12-month change
Atlanta | 0.7% | 6.5%
Boston | 0.2% | 5.3%
Charlotte | 0.4% | 6.0%
Chicago | 0.0% | 2.4%
Cleveland | 0.0% | 3.5%
Dallas | 0.2% | 6.9%
Denver | 0.7% | 7.6%
Detroit | 0.1% | 7.6%
Las Vegas | 0.6% | 11.1%
Los Angeles | 0.6% | 7.6%
Miami | 0.6% | 4.0%
Minneapolis | 0.1% | 5.9%
New York | 0.0% | 5.2%
Phoenix | 0.3% | 5.9%
Portland | 0.4% | 7.1%
San Diego | 0.8% | 7.4%
San Francisco | 0.4% | 10.2%
Seattle | 0.7% | 12.9%
Tampa | 0.4% | 6.7%
Washington | -0.4% | 2.4%

Read: Mortgage rates edge up even as trade war worries loom ahead