RealEstateEconomyWatch.com

Five Western states with the highest home price appreciation in February, Nevada (+19.3 percent), Arizona (+18.6 percent), California (+15.3 percent), Hawaii (+14.6 percent) and Idaho (+13.5 percent), led the nation to the biggest price increase in seven years.

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 10.2 percent on a year-over-year basis in February 2013 compared to February 2012, the biggest year-over-year increase since March 2006 and the 12th consecutive monthly increase in home prices nationally, according to Corelogic’s February price report.

Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased on a year-over-year basis by 10.1 percent in February 2013 compared to February 2012. On a month-over-month basis, excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 1.5 percent in February 2013 compared to January 2013. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

The CoreLogic Pending HPI indicates that March 2013 home prices, including distressed sales, are also expected to rise by 10.2 percent on a year-over-year basis from March 2012 and rise by 1.2 percent on a month-over-month basis from February 2013. Excluding distressed sales, March 2013 home prices are poised to rise 11.4 percent year over year from March 2012 and by 2.0 percent month over month from February 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 measure price changes for the most recent month.

“The rebound in prices is heavily driven by western states. Eight of the top ten highest appreciating large markets are in California, with Phoenix and Las Vegas rounding out the list,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.

“Home prices continued their march upward in February. Nationally, home prices improved at the best rate since mid-2006, marking a full year of annual increases and underscoring the ongoing strengthening of market fundamentals,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Continued home price appreciation will provide fuel needed to drive further recovery in the home purchase market.”

Highlights as of February 2013:

• Including distressed sales, this month only three states posted home price depreciation: Delaware (-4.4 percent), Alabama (-1.5 percent) and Illinois (-1.0 percent).
• Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were: Nevada (+18.3 percent), Arizona (+16.4 percent), Hawaii (+15.5 percent), California (+15.3 percent) and Idaho (+15.3 percent).
• Excluding distressed sales, only one state, Delaware (-1.9 percent) posted home price depreciation in February.
• Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the national HPI (from April 2006 to February 2013) was -26.3 percent. Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI for the same period was -19.3 percent.
• The five states with the largest peak-to-current declines, including distressed transactions, were Nevada (-50.8 percent), Florida (-43.3 percent), Michigan (-39.0 percent), Arizona (-38.5 percent) and Rhode Island (-36.4 percent).
• Of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by population, 96 were showing year-over-year increases in February, up from 94 in January.

*January 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.