Home prices continued to trend upwards in August, posting both yearly and monthly gains for the sixth consecutive month, CoreLogic reported Tuesday.
When including distressed sales, home prices in August rose 4.6 percent from a year ago, marking the biggest yearly gain since July 2006. Month-over-month, prices were up 0.3 percent from July to August.
When excluding distressed sales, which are short sales and REO transactions, prices were up yearly and monthly by 4.9 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
CoreLogic’s Pending HPI points to further increases into September. Prices including distressed sales are expected to rise by 5 percent yearly and 0.3 percent monthly.
“Sustained economic recovery in the U.S. requires a healthy housing market. You cannot have a healthy housing market without price stabilization and ultimately home price appreciation,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, in a release. “Improving pricing trends over the past few months and our forecast for continued gains in September bode well for a progressive rebound in the residential housing market.”
On a state-by-state basis, all but six states saw price gains.
Including distressed sales, the five states that appreciated the most over a one-year period were Arizona (+18.2 percent), Idaho (+10.4 percent), Nevada (+9.0 percent), Utah (+8.9 percent) and Hawaii (+8 percent).
Rhode Island led with the biggest decline, where prices fell 2.6 percent, followed by Illinois (-2.3 percent), New Jersey (-1.4 percent), Alabama (-0.7 percent) and Connecticut (-0.5 percent).
Phoenix continued to outshine other metros, rising 21.8 percent from August 2011. Houston ranked second, but was still far behind, gaining 6.3 percent during the same period. Washington D.C. (+4.8 percent), Dallas (+4.3 percent), and Los Angeles (4 percent) were also among the top five.
