Home prices rose 0.7 percent from January to February according to Black Knight Financial Services.  The company's Home Price Index (HPI) was at $245,000 a 5.3 percent increase from February 2015.

The company said that there is still strong upward monthly price movement in several states and metro areas.  Washington led with 1.8 percent appreciation over January followed by Colorado at 1.7 percent.  The remainder of the top five were Oregon, California with monthly gains of 1.3 percent and Hawaii at 1.2 percent.  The strongest metro areas were San Jose with a 2.4 percent increase, and Seattle, up 2.1 percent. 

Three states saw prices fall during the month, Connecticut, down 0.4 percent and Rhode Island, and New Jersey each falling 0.2 percent.  The three together also accounted for seven of the 10 worst performing metro areas.

Black Knight says the U.S. HPI is now up 27.5 percent from the 2012 price bottom but is still down 5 percent from the peak of $267,000 it reached in 2006.  Of the 20 largest states tracked by the company New York, Tennessee, and Texas all hit new peaks as did 10 of the largest 40 metro areas; Austin, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City (MO), Nashville, Portland (OR), San Antonio, San Francisco, and San Jose.