Nationwide home prices posted their second year-over-year increase since 2010 in April, according to one influential index – indicating that the housing market gained steam during the spring home buying season.
A report on Tuesday from housing research firm CoreLogic showed that U.S. home prices increased on a year-over-year basis in April by 1.1 percent when sales of foreclosed and other real-estate owned distressed properties were included. For non-distressed homes, prices grew 1.9 percent compared to April 2011, representing the steepest rate of increase since the end of 2006.
CoreLogic said prices will continue to climb, largely because of shrinking home inventory levels. Currently, there is about 6 and-a-half months of home inventory on the market — the lowest level in more than five years, the report noted. “Home prices are responding to a restricted supply that will likely exist for some time to come —an optimistic sign for the future of our industry,” said Anand Nallarthambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic.
The CoreLogic data, which the Federal Reserve uses to value real estate in its modeling, told a much happier tale of the state of the housing market than the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which was released last week. U.S. home values dropped to new post-housing crisis lows, with prices in 20 major cities tumbling 2.6 percent during the first quarter of 2012, the index showed.
Highlights of the latest CoreLogic report:
- Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest rates of appreciation were: Arizona (+8.8 percent), District of Columbia (6.4 percent), Florida (+5.5 percent), Montana (+5.4 percent), and Utah (+5.4 percent).
- Including distressed sales, the five states with the greatest rates of depreciation were: Delaware (-11.9 percent), Illinois (-6.8 percent), Alabama (-6.6 percent), Rhode Island (-6.2 percent), and Georgia (-5.6 percent).
- Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest appreciation were: Utah (+5.3 percent), Idaho (+5.1 percent), Mississippi (+4.7 percent), Louisiana (+4.6 percent) and Arizona (+4.6 percent).
- Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the greatest depreciation were: Delaware (-10.1 percent), Rhode Island (-6.2 percent), Alabama (-4.4 percent), Vermont (-2.8 percent) and Connecticut (-2.3 percent).
- Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the national home price index (HPI) (from April 2006 to April 2012) was -31.7 percent. Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI for the same period was -23.3 percent.
- The five states with the largest peak-to-current declines including distressed transactions were Nevada (-58.9 percent), Florida (-46.5 percent), Arizona (-46.5 percent), Michigan (-43.6 percent) and California (-41.0 percent).
- Of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by population, 44 are showing year-over-year declines in April, 10 fewer than in March.
