Home prices still rising nationally
Although all real estate is local, on a national scale, home prices are continuing to improve at a healthy pace. According to CoreLogic’s Home Price Index for November, home prices (including distressed sales) rose 11.8 percent compared to November 2012, marking the 21st consecutive monthly year-over-year increase.
Compared to October’s adjusted data, home prices only rose 0.1 percent for the month, and 0.3 percent when excluding distressed sales.
The report warns that for their next report which will reveal December data, home prices are expected to fall 0.1 percent for the month. This would eliminate the current report’s gain, but is not enough to set back the industry.
Expected drop during the holidays
“The housing market paused as expected in November for the holiday season with very low month-over-month appreciation. Year-over-year home prices are up an impressive 11.8 percent,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Our pending HPI projects that home prices will grow by 11.5 percent for the full year 2013. That will make 2013 the best year for home-price appreciation since 2005.”
“On a year-over-year basis, home prices have appreciated every month in 2013. Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia are now at or within 10 percent of their peaks,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “The outlook for 2014 looks a bit less robust as regulatory complexities and tight credit can be expected to cool the housing market.”
Regional performance varied
Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were Nevada (+25.3 percent), California (+21.3 percent), Michigan (+14.4 percent), Arizona (+13.5 percent) and Georgia (+13.3 percent).
Including distressed sales, the only state to show depreciation was Arkansas (-1.1 percent).
Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were Nevada (+21 percent), California (+17.6 percent), Idaho (+12.4 percent), Florida (+12.4 percent) and Arizona (+11.7 percent).
Excluding distressed sales, no states posted home price depreciation in November.
Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the national HPI (from April 2006 to November 2013) was -17.6 percent. Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI for the same period was -13.3 percent.
The five states with the largest peak-to-current declines, including distressed transactions, were Nevada (-40.5 percent), Florida (-37.3 percent), Arizona (-31.4 percent), Rhode Island (-29.4 percent) and Illinois (-24.5 percent).
Tara Steele is the News Director at The American Genius, covering entrepreneur, real estate, technology news and everything in between. If you'd like to reach Tara with a question, comment, press release or hot news tip, simply click the link below.

John Slocum, Vancouver
January 16, 2014 at 5:43 pm
Our Vancouver WA real estate market did not pause in 2012’s 4th quarter however, we sure did in 2013. The 12-Month Moving average leveled, and the 3-Month Moving Average became choppy and pierced the 12-month MA line from above. The market action seems to have heated up again in January, however!