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Asking Prices Up 7.8% as South Takes Lead

house-graphupHome prices leveled up nationwide in August, boosting long-dawdling markets in the South and accelerating the recovery in other states as foreclosure gluts begin to clear, according to Trulia.

The real-estate website monitored prices and rents in August, adjusting compositions for listed homes and third-party data from RealtyTrac.

According to Trulia, asking home prices only nudged along by 1 percent nationally last month, just a little above the marginal climb in July. Asking prices, meanwhile, leapt ahead by 7.8 percent year over year.

The South helped carry much of the growth, boasting seven of the 10 U.S. metro cities with the biggest gains.

Residential home markets in Florida posted some of the largest increases in asking prices, according to the website. Asking prices went up year-over-year in towns and cities like Miami, Lakeland-Winter Haven, and West Palm Beach by 15.6 percent, 14.8 percent, and 14.5 percent, respectively.

Birmingham, Alabama, also posted a 15.6 percent increase from August last year, but it wasn't much of a change from the same asking prices reported year-over-year in 2013.

Trulia found home price trends slowing outside the region, especially in California. Asking prices reflected some of the same double-digit changes in Riverside-San Bernardino and Oakland, but that represents a more glacial pace after the two cities topped out last year at 26 percent and 30.9 percent, respectively.

Other markets around the United States offered more modest price gains in light of a post-recession boon.

Jed Kolko, Trulia's chief economist, tied regional price differences to a foreclosure bottleneck that continues to unstop as courts in states with judicial processes finally begin to clear their dockets.

Excluding foreclosures, asking prices for homes on sale climbed ahead by 6.9 percent year-over-year in those states with judicial processes, not far from the 7.8-percent increase observed in cities in states without the same court-required reviews.

"Despite the pain that a longer foreclosure process can cause, markets in judicial states have had a more sober and sustainable price recovery," Kolko said.

Up from 5.1 percent last year, that August increase comes closer to the 14.1-percent gain in non-judicial states.

The real-estate website noted that asking prices in harder-hit states with judicial processes in fact eclipsed those in states without the same processes by 10.6 percent to a weaker 8.3 percent.

Kolko added that states in the Northeast continue to see smaller bumps in their home prices as a result of a quieter housing market and still-stagnant job growth.

Trulia also found rents increasing by 6.3 percent since August last year, with five of the 25 biggest rental markets showing price gains of more than 10 percent year-over-year.

About Author: Ryan Schuette

Ryan Schuette is a journalist, cartoonist, and social entrepreneur with several years of experience in real-estate news, international reporting, and business management. He currently lives in the Washington, D.C., area, where he freelances for DS News and MReport.
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