Tuesday, CoreLogic reported that March 2014 national home prices increased by 11.1 percent year over year, and increased by 1.4 percent month over month from February. This marks the 25th consecutive month of year-over-year increases in the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI). Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 9.5 percent from March 2013 and increased 0.9 percent from the prior month. Including distressed sales, prices were still 16.0 percent below peak levels, and excluding distressed sales, prices were down 11.6 percent from the peak.
Including distressed sales, year-over-year home prices were up in the District of Columbia and every state except Arkansas (-0.3 percent). California led the country with a 17.2 percent price increase from March 2013, followed closely by Nevada with a 15.5 percent increase. Excluding distressed sales, no state showed a year-over-year home price decrease. In terms of monthly changes, 42 states and the District of Columbia showed increases, with Mississippi (+3.2 percent) and Alaska (+2.3 percent) showing the largest increases and West Virginia (-1.8 percent) and Alabama (-1.0 percent) showing the largest decreases.
Colorado, the District of Columbia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming all reached new highs in home prices, and Louisiana is approaching peak index levels as well. Conversely, despite rapid appreciation, Nevada remained at 39.9 percent below its peak in 2006, followed by Florida (-36.3 percent). Figure 1 shows the current, maximum and minimum year-over-year growth rates for the 25 states with the highest year-over-year appreciation. The figure illustrates that some of the states now growing the fastest also fell the farthest in the housing crisis.
In addition to the overall price indices, CoreLogic tracks four individual price tiers. The price tiers tracked by the CoreLogic HPI are calculated relative to the mean national home price and include homes that are priced 75 percent or less below the mean (low price), between 75 and 100 percent of the mean (low-to-middle price), between 100 and 125 percent of the mean (middle-to-moderate price) and greater than 125 percent of the mean (high price).
Figure 2 shows the levels of the four price tiers indexed to January 2011. The two lower-priced tiers have recovered the most from their trough levels (both hit in March 2011), with the low-to-middle tier recovering 27.7 percent from the trough and the low-price tier recovering 33.7 percent from the trough. As of March 2014, the low-priced tier increased 16 percent year-over-year, with 7.2 percent of that gain happening just in 2014. The two higher-price tiers both bottomed out in February 2012, with the middle-to-moderate price tier recovering 26 percent from the trough and the high-price tier recovering 21.1 percent from the trough. The high-price tier fell the least, at 27.6 percent peak-to-trough, and is currently 12.9 percent below its peak. The low-to-middle price tier fared the worst in the housing crisis, falling 37.3 percent peak-to-trough, and is currently 19.9 percent below peak levels.