Chicago single-family house prices took a small step forward in September, according to figures released this morning, but prices rose slower here than in the rest of the country.

The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed a year-over-year increase of 1.1 percent in the Chicago area, paltry compared to the 20-city index’s 5.5 percent growth over the same period. Ours was the worst performance of the 20 cities.

​Since 2013, when local prices climbed 11.3 percent, Chicago’s prices have flattened, and over the last few months in particular, gains have trailed broader index. But hold your panic!

David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said that manufacturing areas such the Rust Belt tend to record the slowest growth. “Chicago’s not Cleveland or Detroit but some of the same dynamics of job and population loss apply,”  Blitzer said.

Decreasing rates of home ownership and an increasing supply of new rental options for urbanites is contributing to a nationwide slowdown in price growth,  Blitzer said, although he said prices were still rising at a good clip, more than twice the rate of inflation.