January Price Appreciation Climbs to 9%

Real estate tech firm FNC Inc.’s Residential Price Index (RPI) continued to accelerate in January—and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.

According to the company, the index, which measures price movements with distressed sales excluded, jumped up 9.0 percent annually in January following an 8.7 percent boost in December. On a monthly basis, the index’s national composite increased 0.4 percent, beating December’s 0.3 percent gain and matching November’s improvement.

On an annual basis, the smaller-scale 30- and 10-metro components rose 10.7 percent and 11.1 percent, respectively, each beating their previous increases; they also performed well on a month-to-month basis, gaining 0.6 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.

Looking ahead, FNC is already anticipating a similarly strong February index as signs continue to improvement in the market.

“The for-sale market has strengthened in February and the average seller asking price discount dropped from 5.4 percent in January to 4.7 percent in February,” the company said in a release.

At the local level, nearly half of the 30 markets tracked in the 30-city index recorded gains higher than or approaching 1 percent. Appreciation was led by Atlanta and Denver, which each saw monthly increases of 1.9 percent. Following them were Cincinnati (1.8 percent), San Francisco (1.7 percent), and Chicago and Portland (1.5 percent).

Prices fell on a monthly basis in seven markets: Nashville (-1.8 percent), Baltimore (-1.7 percent), Sacramento (-1.6 percent), San Antonio (-1.3 percent), Minneapolis (-1.2 percent), Charlotte (-0.8 percent), and St. Louis (-0.3 percent).

Much of those declines are “attributable to seasonal fluctuations,” FNC said.

Year-over-year, every market except for St. Louis posted higher prices, ranging from an increase of 27.4 percent in Sacramento to 0.8 percent in Columbus. As for the “Gateway to the West”: Prices were down 1.3 percent, FNC reported.