July 2012 CoreLogic Home Price Index Strong Improvement – Now Up 3.8% Over Last Year

Econintersect: CoreLogic’s Home Price Index (HPI) shows that home prices in the U.S. increased in July 2012 3.8% year-over-year (1.3% month-over-month). This is the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year increase – and the largest increase since August 2006. The National Association of Realtors 3 month rolling average also ticked up strongly in July.

CoreLogic stated:

“The housing market continues its positive trajectory with significant price gains in July and our expectation of a further increase in August,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “While the pace of growth is moderating as we transition to the off-season for home buying, we expect a positive gain in price levels for the full year.”

“It’s been six years since the housing market last experienced the gains that we saw in July, with indications the summer will finish up on a strong note,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Although we expect some slowing in price gains over the balance of 2012, we are clearly seeing the light at the end of a very long tunnel.”

Excluding distressed sales, home prices nationwide increased on a year-over-year basis by 4.3 percent in July 2012 compared to July 2011. On a month-over-month basis excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 1.7 percent in July 2012 compared to June 2012, also the fifth consecutive month-over-month increase. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

The CoreLogic Pending HPI indicates that August home prices, including distressed sales, will rise by 4.6 percent on a year-over-year basis from August 2011 and at least 0.6 percent on a month-over-month basis from July 2012. Excluding distressed sales, August house prices are also poised to rise 6.0 percent year-over-year from August 2011 and by 1.3 percent month-over-month from July 2012. The CoreLogic Pending HPI is a proprietary and exclusive metric that provides the most current indication of trends in home prices. It is based on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data that measure price changes in the most recent month.

Comparison of Home Price Indices – Case-Shiller 3 Month Average (blue line, left axis), CoreLogic (green line, left axis) and National Association of Realtors (red line, right axis)

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The way to understand the dynamics of home prices is to watch the direction of the rate of change – and not necessarily whether the prices are getting better or worse. Here almost universally – home prices are either improving or becoming less bad – with the National Association of Realtors home prices currently showing the largest price gains.

Year-over-Year Price Change Home Price Indices – Case-Shiller 3 Month Average (blue bar), CoreLogic (yellow bar) and National Association of Realtors (red bar)

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Steven Hansen

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Source: CoreLogic