U.S. home prices rose in January after three months of declines as a tight supply of properties likely supported prices despite slower sales. Excluding distressed sales, Arizona was in the five highest states for home price appreciation.
Real estate data provider CoreLogic said Tuesday that prices rose 0.9% in January after dipping 0.1% in December. Over the past 12 months, home prices have risen 12%, the biggest year-over-year gain in more than eight years.
Such outsize price gains might not continue much longer. Some economists say January's price gains reflect conditions several months ago, when buyers first made offers. The sales were completed in January. Since then, more homes have come on the market - dropping prices and slowing sales.
Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 12% in January 2014 compared to January 2013. This change represents 23 months of consecutive year-over-year increases in home prices nationally. On a month-over-month basis, home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased by 0.9% in January 2014 compared to December 2013.
At the state level, including distressed sales, Louisiana, Nebraska and Texas surpassed their previous home price peaks in January 2014. In all, 22 states and the District of Columbia are at or within 10 percent of their peak home price appreciation. Additionally, over the past year, seven states equaled or grew faster than the nation as a whole, including Nevada, California, Oregon, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Florida.
Excluding distressed sales, home prices nationally increased 9.8% in January 2014 compared to January 2013 and 0.7% month over month compared to December 2013. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.
The CoreLogic Pending HPI indicates that February 2014 home prices, including distressed sales, are projected to increase 12.5% year over year from February 2013. On a month-over-month basis, home prices are expected to increase 0.7 percent from January 2014 to February 2014. Excluding distressed sales, February 2014 home prices are poised to rise 10.4% year over year from February 2013 and 1.1% month over month from January 2014. The CoreLogic Pending HPI is a proprietary and exclusive metric that provides the most current indication of trends in home prices. It is based on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data that measures price changes for the most recent month.
“Polar vortices and a string of snow storms did not manage to weaken house price appreciation in January,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “The last time January month-over-month and year-over-year price appreciation was this strong was at the height of the housing bubble in 2006.”
“Home prices continued to march higher in January and we expect to see more increases as the market comes out of hibernation for the spring buying season,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Excluding distressed sales, all 50 states and the District of Columbia showed year-over-year home price appreciation for January.”
Highlights as of January 2014:
- Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were Nevada (+22.2 percent), California (+20.3 percent), Oregon (+14.3 percent), Michigan (+13.7 percent) and Georgia (+13.4 percent).
- Including distressed sales, only Mississippi (-0.3 percent) posted home price depreciation in January 2014.
- Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were Nevada (+17.2 percent), California (+16.0 percent), Florida (+12.7 percent), Arizona (+11.5 percent) and Oregon (+11.4 percent).
- Excluding distressed sales, no states posted home price depreciation in January.
- Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the national HPI (from April 2006 to January 2014) was -17.3 percent. Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI for the same period was -13.3 percent.
- The five states with the largest peak-to-current declines, including distressed transactions, were Nevada (-40.1 percent), Florida (-36.4 percent), Arizona (-30.8 percent), Rhode Island (-30.5 percent) and West Virginia (-28.9 percent).
- Ninety-seven of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas** (CBSAs) measured by population showed year-over-year increases in January 2014. The three CBSAs that did not show an increase were New Haven-Milford, CT, Philadelphia, PA. and Rochester, NY.
**The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a bulletin on Feb. 28, 2013, establishing revised Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) delineations. These new delineations are reflected in this data.
Full-month Janaury 2014 national data can be found at the Home Price Index Report page.