The monthly Case-Shiller house price index for April (here's a link to the full story) showed that the best year-over-gains in at least seven years, with 19 of 20 metro areas tracked by the report posting big increases in sale prices.

The Twin Cities did unusually well. The index rose 14.8 percent year-over-year to 126.81, which means that prices are now nearly 27 percent higher than they were when the index baseline was established in 2000. That was a 2.9 percent gain from March after falling 1.1 percent from February to March. Only six cities did better.