Home prices, including sales of distressed homes, increased nationally by 12 percent in the 12 months ended in January CoreLogic said today.  This was the 23^rd consecutive month in which the company's Home Price Index (HPI) showed prices up nationally on a year-over-year basis.  Excluding distressed sales prices rose 9.8 percent.

January prices, including distressed sales, rose 0.9 percent and excluding those sales were up 0.7 percent.  Distressed sales are short sales and sales of bank-owned real estate (REO).

Three states surpassed their previous home price peaks in 2013.  The three, Texas, Nebraska, and Louisiana established new price peaks for the month while 19 other states and the District of Columbia are within 10 percent of their peak prices.   All three of the states setting new market had rates of appreciation below the national average in 2013.  The new peaks may be as much a factor of having suffered smaller than average declines in home values during the housing crisis as an indication of strong appreciation during the recovery.  On a national basis the peak to current change in the HPI from the peak in April 2006 to the present was -17.3 percent including distressed property sales and -13.3 percent excluding them.

The five states with the highest 12 month price appreciation were Nevada (+22.2 percent), California (+20.3 percent), Oregon (+14.3 percent), Michigan (+13.7 percent) and Georgia (+13.4 percent).  Arizona and Florida also had a higher rate of appreciation than the national average.  Mississippi prices declined 0.3 percent, the only state to show depreciation on CoreLogic's HPI which included distressed sales.

Every state and the District of Colombia had a year-over-year increase in the HPI which excludes distressed sales.  The top five were Nevada (+17.2 percent), California (+16.0 percent), Florida (+12.7 percent), Arizona (+11.5 percent) and Oregon (+11.4 percent). 

CoreLogic's Pending HPI forecasts that February 2014 home prices including distressed sales will increase 12.5 percent year over year from February 2013. Home prices are expected to increase 0.7 percent from January 2014 to February 2014. Excluding distressed sales the annual appreciation is predicted at 10.4 percent and the monthly change at +1.1 percent.  The Pending HPI is based on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data that measures price changes for the most recent month.

"Polar vortices and a string of snow storms did not manage to weaken house price appreciation in January," said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. "The last time January month-over-month and year-over-year price appreciation was this strong was at the height of the housing bubble in 2006."

"Home prices continued to march higher in January and we expect to see more increases as the market comes out of hibernation for the spring buying season," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Excluding distressed sales, all 50 states and the District of Columbia showed year-over-year home price appreciation for January."

97 of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas measured by population showed year-over-year increases in January 2014. The three that did not were New Haven-Milford, Connecticut, Philadelphia, and Rochester, New York.