The S&P/Case-Shiller National Index, a broad gauge of U.S. home prices, posted a 2% gain in the first quarter from a year earlier, but was down 3.2% from the end of 2009.

The national data are released quarterly, but the monthly numbers showed a similar pattern. The closely watched 20-city home-price index rose 2.3% in March from a year earlier, but was 0.5% lower than February.

Cleveland posted the largest jump in prices from the prior month, while Las Vegas posted the biggest drop. Eight cities — Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, Portland and Tampa — posted new index lows. But, the West Coast has shown some strength. Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco are all up more than 7% from recent lows. San Diego, in particular, has stood out with 11 consecutive months of increasing home prices.

“Price improvement in the housing market is clearly slowing and there is a very, very real risk that over the next few months, the year-over-year change in prices turn negative,” said Dan Greenhaus of Miller Tabak & Co. “That is not to say housing drags us down into a full-on double dip recession, something we’ve never believed, but its tough for us to envision a scenario in which housing prices decline and sentiment and perhaps consumption does not follow suit.”

Click Continue Reading for data from the 20 metro areas Case-Shiller tracks, sortable by name, level, monthly change and year-over-year change — just click the column headers to re-sort.