Econintersect: CoreLogic’s Home Price Index (HPI) shows that home prices in the USA in September 2014 are up 5.6% year-over-year (reported up 0.1% month-over-month). The year-over-year growth rate was down from the 5.4% reported last month.
This is the 31th consecutive month of year-over-year increase. Sam Khater, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic stated:
There has been a clear bifurcation in home price growth for lower-end versus upper-end properties in 2014. As of December 2013, both lower-end and upper-end property prices were up 9.7 percent on a year over year basis. As of September, lower-end prices were up 9.4 percent but upper-end prices were up only 4.5 percent
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Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic stated:
Home prices continue to rise compared with this time last year but the rate of growth is clearly slowing as we exit 2014. With more positive macro-economic trends emerging in the U.S., we are forecasting moderate price growth for 2015
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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. Home prices are improving – but the rate growth of year-over-year price improvement is now declining.
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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Source: CoreLogic
