Home Prices Rising at Fastest Pace in 36 Years

Housing prices increased by what thernChief Economist for CoreLogic called “a remarkable 10 percent” in the first six months of 2013, the company announced this morning. Mark Fleming noted that the 10 percent year-to-date increase was thernfastest pace for home price gains since 1977. </p

The June CoreLogic Home Price Indexrn(HPI) which includes sales of distressed properties increased 1.9rnpercent from May, and was up 11.9 percent compared to June 2012. The year-over-year change marked the 16^th consecutivernmonth that home prices had increased on an annual basis.</p

When distressed sales are excluded, thernyear-over-year increase was 11 percent and the change from May tornJune was 1.8 percent. Distressed sales include short sales and salesrnof bank-owned properties (REO).</p

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The company said that, despiternthe recent nearly unprecedented gains, home prices remain 19 percentrnbelow the peak pricing set in April 2006 and when distressed salesrnare excluded, prices are down 14 percent from that peak. Sevenrnstates (Alaska, Colorado, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Texas,rnWyoming) and the District of Colombia are now back to theirrnpre-crisis HPI levels while several others are still postingrnpeak-to-current declines 50 percent or more above the nationalrnaverage. Among the states still severely impacted are Nevada (-44.3rnpercent), Florida (38.6 percent), Arizona (33.9 percent), RhodernIsland (31.7 percent) and Michigan (31.1 percent). </p

CoreLogic expects its HPIrnto continue to increase, at least short term. Its Pending HPI, arnproprietary metric based on Multiple Listing Service data, isrnpredicting that July will see a 12.5 percent year-over-year increasernand a 1.3 percent gain from June. With distressed sales excluded thernannual and monthly numbers are expected to be 11.4 percent and 1.3rnpercent respectively.</p

“The U.S. housing market experienced robustrnprice appreciation during the first half of 2013 and our forecastrncalls for double-digit growth through July,” said AnandrnNallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Despite theirrnrebound of late, home prices remain reasonable in a historicalrncontext, with most states near peak affordability levels.”</p

Including distressed sales, the five states with thernhighest home price appreciation were Nevada (+26.5 percent),rnCalifornia (+21.4 percent), Wyoming (+16.7 percent), Arizona (+16.2rnpercent) and Georgia (+14.3 percent). Only two states saw pricesrnfall, Mississippi (-2.1 percent) and Delaware (-1.1 percent). </p

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There were no states where prices excludingrndistressed sales were down. The biggest gainers were: Nevada (+23.6rnpercent), California (+18.7 percent), Arizona (+14.1 percent), Utahrn(+13.8 percent) and Florida (+12.7 percent)</p

Of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs)rnmeasured by population, 99 were showing year-over-year increases inrnJune, up from 98 in May 2013.

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