The housing market closed out 2013 with one of the strongest annual price increases witnessed in eight years, according to recent data from CoreLogic.
Home prices, including distressed sales, nationwide rose 11% in December year-over-year compared to 2012. The change represents the 22nd consecutive monthly year-over-year increase in national home prices, as well as the strongest annual price growth since 2005.
On a monthly basis, the change in home prices was less dramatic, having decreased by 0.1% from November 2013.
Excluding distressed sales, home prices rose 9.9% in December 2013 compared to 2012 and 0.2% month-over-month compared to November 2013.
Building on the momentum of December’s growth, the CoreLogic Pending Home Price Index (HPI) projects January 2014 home prices, including distressed sales, will increase 10.2% year-over-year.
CoreLogic’s Pending HPI is a metric that projects where home prices are headed based on Multiple Listing Service data that measures trends in price changes for the most recent month.
On a month-over-month basis, the HPI projects home prices will experience a decrease of 0.8% in January 2014 compared to December 2013.
National home prices experienced a great deal of progress in the last year, having risen 11% and with 10 states and the District of Columbia reaching new all-time price peaks, according to Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.
“We expect the rising prices to attract more sellers, unlocking this pent-up supply, which will have a moderating effect on prices in 2014,” Fleming said.
Many of the states that posted the highest home price gains as of December 2013 were mostly those found in the western U.S, with Nevada (23.9%) and California (19.7%) leading the charge.
Michigan (14%), Oregon (13.7%) and Georgia (12.8%) followed suit.
States that had the highest declines as of December 2013 were Arkansas (-1.5%), New Mexico (-1.3%) and Mississippi (-0.2%).
“The healthy and broad based gains in home prices in 2013 help set the stage for the continued recovery in the housing sector in 2014,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “After six years of fits and starts, we can now see a clearer path to a durable recovery in single family residential housing across most of the U.S.”
Written by Jason Oliva
