Home prices nationwide increased 12.2% in May from year ago levels, signaling the largest year-over-year gain since February 2006, according to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI).
Month-over-month, home prices were up 2.6% in May 2013 compared to April. While May achieved the highest annual gain in the past seven years, the gain also represents the 15th consecutive monthly increase in national home prices.
“It’s been more than seven years since the housing market last experienced the increases that we saw in May, with indications that the summer months will continue to see significant gains,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.
Including distressed sales, the CoreLogic Pending HPI forecasts that June 2013 home prices are expected to rise by 13.2% year-over-year, and rise by 2.9% from May 2013.
Geographically, prices continued to rise among the top five states featured in last month’s CoreLogic HPI.
The states posting the highest annual home price appreciation for May were Nevada (26%), California (20.2%), Arizona (16.9%), Hawaii (16.1%) and Oregon (15.5%).
“Home price appreciation, particularly in much of the western half of the U.S., is increasing at a torrid pace,” said CoreLogic President and CEO Anand Nallathambi.
Nationwide, pent-up demand and low interest rates are fueling strong demand for a limited inventor of properties, he added.
“We expect that trend to continue to drive up prices throughout the balance of the summer months,” said Nallathambi.
Of the top-100 Core Based Statistical Areas measured by population in CoreLogic’s HPI, 97 were showing year-over-year growth in May, up from 94 in April 2013.
Written by Jason Oliva
