June 03, 2014

April 2014 Home Prices Increased 10.5 Percent Year Over Year

Eight States Hit New Home Price Peaks

Thomas Vitlo    |    Housing Trends

Today, CoreLogic reported that April 2014 national home prices increased by 10.5 percent year over year, and increased by 2.1 percent month over month from March. This marks the 26th consecutive month of year-over-year increases in the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI). Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 8.3 percent from April 2013 and increased 1.1 percent from the prior month. Including distressed sales, prices were still 14.3 percent below peak levels, and excluding distressed sales, prices were down 10.8 percent from the peak in April 2006.

Including distressed sales, year-over-year home prices were up in the District of Columbia and every state. California led the country with a 15.6-percent price increase from April 2013, followed closely by Nevada with a 14.8-percent increase. Excluding distressed sales, 45 states saw a month-over-month rise in prices, with Michigan (+2.9 percent) and Illinois (+2.9 percent) showing the largest increases and Massachusetts (-0.9 percent) and Montana (-0.6 percent) showing the largest decreases. No state showed a year-over-year home price decrease.

Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming all reached new highs in home prices in April 2014. Conversely, despite rapid appreciation, Nevada remained at 38.6 percent below its peak in 2006, followed by Florida (-34.5 percent). Figure 1 shows the current, maximum and minimum year-over-year growth rates for the 25 states with the highest year-over-year appreciation. The figure illustrates that some of the states now growing the fastest also fell the farthest in the housing crisis.

In addition to the overall price indices, CoreLogic analyzes four individual home-price tiers. The price tiers tracked by the CoreLogic HPI are calculated relative to the mean national home price and include homes that are priced 75 percent or less below the mean (low price), between 75 and 100 percent of the mean (low-to-middle price), between 100 and 125 percent of the mean (middle-to-moderate price) and greater than 125 percent of the mean (high price).

Figure 2 shows the levels of the four price tiers indexed to January 2011. The two lower-priced tiers have recovered the most from their trough levels (both hit bottom in March 2011), with the low-price tier recovering 35.8 percent from the trough and the low-to-middle tier recovering 30.5 percent from the trough. As of April 2014, the low-price tier increased 17.7 percent year-over-year, with 8.7 percent of that gain happening just in 2014. The two higher-price tiers both bottomed out in February 2012, with the middle-to-moderate price tier recovering 28.5 percent from the trough and the high-price tier recovering 24.6 percent from the trough. The high-price tier fell the least, at 27.6 percent peak-to-trough, and is currently 10.3 percent below its peak. The low-to-middle price tier fared the worst in the housing crisis, falling 37.3 percent peak-to-trough, and now 18.1 percent below peak levels.