While home prices set yet another national peak in August, the change from July was the second smallest of the year, at least as measured by Black Knight Financial Services' Home Price Index (HPI). The August increase, 0.24 percent, exceeded only the January 0.1 percent gain.
The national level HPI was $282,000, up 42 2 percent from the trough of $199,000 it reached in 2012. The August rate of monthly appreciation fell to less than half that of July's, marking five consecutive months of slowing growth. The annual rate of appreciation, 6.24 percent, was unchanged from the year-over-year rate in July. During the first eight months of 2017, U.S. prices have gained 6.06 percent.
The most rapid rate of appreciation was again in New York State. Home prices there were up 1.58 percent for the month and the state accounted for nine of the 10 best performing metropolitan areas. New York was followed by Nevada with growth of 1.04 percent, Vermont at 1.03 percent, New Hampshire, 0.85 percent; and New Jersey, 0.72 percent.
The five states with the poorest performance were all in negative territory. Prices in North Dakota were down 0.26 percent; Connecticut and Virginia, each fell 0.23 percent, and Colorado and Oklahoma, dipped 0.20 and 0.18 percent respectively.
Twelve of the nation's 40 largest metros also saw slight declines, led by previously high-flying Denver with a negative 0.32 appreciation rate. Although not among the largest areas, the largest decline among all metros was Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where prices fell 2.83 percent in a month. While Seattle prices were essentially flat compared to August, they have risen 12.02 percent from the beginning of the year and 14 percent since August 2016.
Ten of the 20 largest states hit new price peaks in August as did 14 of the top 40 metro areas. There were fewer of each group hitting peaks in August than in the most recent months.
Black Knight utilizes repeat sales data from its public records data set and information from its loan-level performance data to produce its HPI.
