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In a familiar theme amid the national housing market, U.S. home prices are down a little for one month, but still doing better than they were a year prior.
Black Knight Financial Services released its latest Home Price Index Report Monday, which showed that home prices nationwide were down an almost-flat 0.1 percent in December. At the same time, 2014 ended with sale prices doing 4.5 percent better than a year prior.
According to the report, the average home sale price in the U.S. in December was $241,000, up from $230,000 a year before and inching closer to the June 2006 peak of $268,000.
Several states, despite the dip, showed average price gains. New York and Colorado each showed a half-percent uptick in sale prices, while Oregon, Florida, Oklahoma, and Arizona each saw prices rise by 0.3 percent. Arkansas, Georgia, Wyoming, and Idaho rounded out a set of states seeing climbs in sale prices.
However, while recovery continues, Arizona and Florida still remain about 30 percent off their pre-crisis peaks, Black Knight reported.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Northeast and Midwest showed the most notable price drops in December. Michigan and Connecticut each saw average sale prices that month drop by more than a percent, while Vermont saw a nearly 1 percent decline. New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island were down by roughly a half-percent in December, as were Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Missouri.
In major metros, Denver, New York, and Dallas showed rising home price sales in December ‒‒ 0.7, 0.5, and 0.1 percent, respectively. Los Angeles was flat, while Chicago and Washington, D.C., each reported dips above 0.2 percent. Detroit reported a 1.2 percent decline.
Some smaller metros in Florida and Colorado, however, showed solid increases in average sale prices in December. Cape Coral, Florida, was up almost a full percent, while several other metros in both states showed at least a half-percent rise in sale prices.
Like the major metros, small metros in the Northeast showed the largest sale price drops. Connecticut reported the most metros of any state to see drops, with declines in Torrington, Bridgeport, Norwich, Hartford, and New Haven. New Haven, in fact, showed the biggest metro decline in the U.S., with a 1.5 percent drop in sale prices. Atlantic City and Trenton, New Jersey; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Santa Rosa, California, also reported nearly 1 percent declines.
