Another report shows home price values in May close to, if not exceeding, those prior to the housing crisis. The latest, from Black Knight Financial Services, shows that home prices in the U.S. increased by 1.1 percent from April to May and were up 5.1 percent year over year.
Black Knight says that the current value of a property on its Home Price Index (HPI) is $251,000. This is within 6.5 percent of the June 2006 peak of $268,000 and up 25 percent from the bottom of the market in January 2012.
All states posted price appreciation during the month; the largest was in New York at 1.8 percent. The New England region was strong with Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island along with New Jersey all posting 1.6 percent gains. The lowest appreciation was 0.3 percent in Hawaii followed by New Mexico, Delaware, and Nevada at 0.4 percent.
When only the 20 largest states are considered the lineup changes considerably. New York still leads, but California, Florida, and Illinois follow at 1.1 percent and Texas is fifth with a 0.9 percent month-over-month increase.
There were some very unfamiliar names at either end of the spectrum of price changes in all metropolitan areas. The largest increase was posted by Janesville, Wisconsin at 3.1 percent with Keene, New Hampshire, Utica and New York City, New York, Willimantic, Connecticut and Lock Haven, Pennsylvania following at 1.9 percent. At the low end, Tucson was unchanged while Honolulu, and eight cities in New Mexico (Taos, Silver City, Los Alamos, Las Vegas, Hobbs, Gallup, Espanola, and Deming) were all up 0.2 percent. New York City leads the list of the largest 40 metro areas with its 1.9 percent gain but the remainder of the top five changes to Los Angeles and Chicago at 1.1 percent and Dallas and Houston with 1.0 and 0.9 percent appreciation respectively.
California posts the strongest recovery among large states. Since the national market his bottom home prices in the state have increased by 49.3 percent and as of May prices in San Francisco and San Jose are nearly 70 percent above the national trough.
Among the 20 largest states three, New York, Tennessee, and Texas all hit new price peaks in May as did 12 of the 40 largest metros, Austin, Boston, Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Denver, Houston, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Portland, Oregon; San Antonio, San Francisco, and San Jose. Home prices in Kansas City, Missouri are now within 0.6 percent of the peak.
Black Knight's HPI is based on May 2015 home sales. The index represents the price of non-distressed sales by taking into account price discounts for REO and short sales.
