Econintersect: CoreLogic's Home Price Index (HPI) shows that home prices in the USA are up 6.5% year-over-year (reported up 1.7% month-over-month). There is considerable backward revision in this index which makes monthly reporting problematic. CoreLogic HPI is used in the Federal Reserves's Flow of Funds to calculate the values of residential real estate.

This is the 40th consecutive month of year-over-year increase. Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic stated:

The tightness of the for-sale inventory varies across cities. Throughout the u.s., the months' supply was 4.8 months in the CoreLogic home-listing data for June, but varied greatly across cities. In San Jose and Denver, there was only 1.6 months' supply of homes on the market, whereas Philadelphia had a 7 months' supply and Providence had a 6.6 months' supply,. The stronger appreciation was registered in cities with limited inventory and strong homebuyer activity, such as San Jose and Denver.

z corelogic2.PNG

Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic stated:

The rate of home price appreciation ticked up in May with gains being fairly widely distributed across the country. Importantly, higher home prices over the past couple of years have spurred increases in new single-family construction. Sales of newly built homes during the first five months of 2015 were up 23 percent from a year ago, and as rising values build equity for homeowners, we expect to see more existing homes offered for sale in the coming year.

z corelogic3.PNG

Comparison of Home Price Indices – Case-Shiller 3 Month Average (blue line, left axis), CoreLogic (green line, left axis) and National Association of Realtors (red line, right axis)

z existing3.PNG

The way to understand the dynamics of home prices is to watch the direction of the rate of change – and not necessarily whether the prices are getting better or worse. Home prices are improving – and the rate of growth is now marginally improving after almost a year of declining growth rate.