U.S. home prices crawl upward

U.S. home prices continued to inch their way up, showing a 0.5% increase from October to November, according to the latest Lender Processing Services home price index.

Home prices grew 5.1% year-over-year, based on LPS’s analysis of homes in 15,500 ZIP codes.

The LPS HPI is a study of non-distressed home sales and discounts the influence of REO sales and short-sale transactions.

The average price for a home sold in the U.S. in November reached $207,000, dropping from a peak of $266,000 in June 2006, but up from $197,000 in November 2011.

The states that saw the greatest price appreciation in the report were Florida (prices up 1.5%); New York (prices up 1.1%); Washington D.C. (prices up 1.0%); and Georgia, Minnesota and Nevada (all up 0.9%).

Conversely, Rhode Island and Massachusetts both saw negative monthly movement, dipping 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively.

Individual metros that saw strong price gains included Chicago (prices up 0.7%), Dallas (prices up 0.3%), Los Angeles (prices up 0.8%), New York (prices up 1.0%) and Washington (prices up 0.5%).

Click on the table below to see the recent HPI changes.

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Jonathon Weiner, vice president of research & development at LPS Applied Analytics believes the upward trajectory of home prices will continue throughout the year.

"Given the duration and strength of the recent upturn, and the absence of any obvious short term cause, it is probably related to a fundamental demand for housing," said Weiner. "While there are any number of external events which could yet impact home prices, barring any unseen developments, we expect this trend to continue through 2013."

mhopkins@housingwire.com