Housing prices increased by what the Chief Economist for CoreLogic called "a remarkable 10 percent" in the first six months of 2013, the company announced this morning. Mark Fleming noted that the 10 percent year-to-date increase was the fastest pace for home price gains since 1977.

The June CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) which includes sales of distressed properties increased 1.9 percent from May, and was up 11.9 percent compared to June 2012. The year-over-year change marked the 16^th consecutive month that home prices had increased on an annual basis.

When distressed sales are excluded, the year-over-year increase was 11 percent and the change from May to June was 1.8 percent. Distressed sales include short sales and sales of bank-owned properties (REO).

The company said that, despite the recent nearly unprecedented gains, home prices remain 19 percent below the peak pricing set in April 2006 and when distressed sales are excluded, prices are down 14 percent from that peak. Seven states (Alaska, Colorado, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming) and the District of Colombia are now back to their pre-crisis HPI levels while several others are still posting peak-to-current declines 50 percent or more above the national average. Among the states still severely impacted are Nevada (-44.3 percent), Florida (38.6 percent), Arizona (33.9 percent), Rhode Island (31.7 percent) and Michigan (31.1 percent).

CoreLogic expects its HPI to continue to increase, at least short term. Its Pending HPI, a proprietary metric based on Multiple Listing Service data, is predicting that July will see a 12.5 percent year-over-year increase and a 1.3 percent gain from June. With distressed sales excluded the annual and monthly numbers are expected to be 11.4 percent and 1.3 percent respectively.

"The U.S. housing market experienced robust price appreciation during the first half of 2013 and our forecast calls for double-digit growth through July," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Despite their rebound of late, home prices remain reasonable in a historical context, with most states near peak affordability levels."

Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were Nevada (+26.5 percent), California (+21.4 percent), Wyoming (+16.7 percent), Arizona (+16.2 percent) and Georgia (+14.3 percent). Only two states saw prices fall, Mississippi (-2.1 percent) and Delaware (-1.1 percent).

There were no states where prices excluding distressed sales were down. The biggest gainers were: Nevada (+23.6 percent), California (+18.7 percent), Arizona (+14.1 percent), Utah (+13.8 percent) and Florida (+12.7 percent)

Of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by population, 99 were showing year-over-year increases in June, up from 98 in May 2013.