CoreLogic: Home Prices Post Greatest Yearly Gain in Almost 7 Years

""CoreLogic's"":http://www.corelogic.com/ Home Price Index (HPI) saw its greatest yearly increase in nearly seven years in January, the analytics provider revealed Tuesday.

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Home prices nationwide--including distressed sales--rose on a year-over-year basis by 9.7 percent in January. The spike represents the biggest increase since April 2006, CoreLogic said.

The HPI analysis shows that all but two states experienced year-over-year price gains. The states with the highest price appreciation in January were Arizona (20.1 percent), Nevada (17.4 percent), Idaho (14.9 percent), California (14.1 percent), and Hawaii (14.0 percent). Delaware and Illinois, the only two states to report price depreciation, saw prices decline 0.1 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.

""The HPI showed strong growth during the typically slow winter season,"" said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. ""With these gains, the housing market is poised to enter the spring selling season on sound footing. The improvements are materializing across the country, with all but Delaware and Illinois showing increasing HPI and 15 states within 10 percent of their peak values.""

On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 0.7 percent from January to December (following a revision to December's findings).

Excluding home sales, home prices increased on an annual basis by 9.0 percent in January. On a month-over-month basis, prices (excluding distressed sales) rose 1.8 percent.

""Home prices continued to gather steam across a broad swath of the country in January, continuing the positive trend we saw in most of 2012,"" said Anand Nallathambi, CoreLogic's president and CEO. ""Many states across the western U.S. and along the East Coast saw average price gains of more than 6 percent, which is likely to boost home sale activity into the first half of 2013.""

CoreLogic's Pending HPI, a metric measuring current trends in home prices, indicates that prices (including distressed sales) in February will likely match January's year-over-year gains, rising 9.7 percent over February 2012. However, February prices are expected to dip 0.3 percent on a monthly basis, reflecting a seasonal winter slowdown.

Excluding distressed sales, February 2013 home prices are poised to rise 11.3 percent year-over-year and 1.8 percent month-over-month, CoreLogic said.