Prices in the new year will pick up almost where last year left off, registering a 10.2 percent increase in January over a year ago according to CoreLogic.   However, the double digit increase is a slight decline from December’s 11 percent.  Is it a sign of softer prices to come?

Rising foreclosure and short sale prices helped December record the 22nd consecutive monthly year-over-year increase in home prices nationally, according to CoreLogic’s December CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI®) report.

The CoreLogic Pending HPI indicates that January 2014 home prices, including distressed sales, are projected to increase 10.2 percent year over year from January 2013. On a month-over-month basis, home prices are expected to dip 0.8 percent from December 2013 to January 2014.  Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 9.9 percent in December 2013 compared to December 2012 and 0.2 percent month over month compared to November 2013. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

Excluding distressed sales, January 2014 home prices are poised to rise 9.7 percent year over year from January 2013 and 0.2 percent month over month from December 2013. 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 measures price changes for the most recent month.

“Last year, home prices rose 11 percent, the highest rate of annual increase since 2005, and ten states and the District of Columbia reached new all-time price peaks,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “We expect the rising prices to attract more sellers, unlocking this pent-up supply, which will have a moderating effect on prices in 2014.”

“The healthy and broad-based gains in home prices in 2013 help set the stage for a continued recovery in the housing sector in 2014,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “After six years of fits and starts, we can now see a clear path to a durable recovery in single-family residential housing across most of the United States.”

Highlights as of December 2013:

•            Including distressed sales, the five states with te highest home price appreciation were Nevada (+23.9 percent), California (+19.7 percent), Michigan (+14.0 percent), Oregon (+13.7 percent) and Georgia (+12.8 percent).

•            Including distressed sales, Arkansas (-1.5 percent), New Mexico (-1.3 percent) and Mississippi (-.2 percent) posted home price depreciation in December 2013.

•            Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were Nevada (+20 percent), California (+16.2 percent), Idaho (+12.8 percent), Oregon (+11.6 percent) and Florida (+11.5 percent).

•            Excluding distressed sales, no states posted home price depreciation in December.

•            Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the national HPI (from April 2006 to December 2013) was -18.0 percent. Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI for the same period was -13.6 percent.

•            The five states with the largest peak-to-current declines, including distressed transactions, were Nevada (-40.6 percent), Florida (-37.6 percent), Arizona (-31.8 percent), Rhode Island (-30.3 percent) and West Virginia (-25.6 percent).

•            Ninety-five of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas** (CBSAs) measured by population showed year-over-year increases in December 2013.

*November data was revised. Revisions with public records data are standard, and to ensure accuracy, CoreLogic incorporates the newly released public data to provide updated results.

**The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a bulletin on Feb. 28, 2013, establishing revised Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) delineations. These new delineations are reflected in this data.

December HPI for the Country’s Largest CBSAs by Population (Ranked by Single Family, Including Distressed):