CoreLogic Reports December 2014 Home Price Index

CoreLogic® (NYSE: CLGX), a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, today released its December 2014 CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI®) which shows that home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 5 percent in December 2014 compared to December 2013. This change represents 34 months of consecutive year-over-year increases in home prices nationally. On a month-over-month basis, home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, fell by 0.1 percent in December 2014 compared to November 2014.*

Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia are at or within 10 percent of their peak. Three states showed year-over-year home price depreciation, including distressed sales, in December; these states were Maryland (-0.7 percent), Vermont (-0.9 percent) and Connecticut (-2.2 percent).

Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 4.9 percent in December 2014 compared to December 2013 and increased 0.1 percent month over month compared to November 2014. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

The CoreLogic HPI Forecast indicates that home prices, including distressed sales, are projected to increase 0.1 percent month over month from December 2014 to January 2015. Full-year 2015 (December to December) increase is projected to be 4.8 percent**. Excluding distressed sales, home prices are also expected to increase by 0.1 percent month over month from December 2014 to January 2015 and increase by 4.5 percent** year over year from December 2014 to December 2015. The CoreLogic HPI Forecast is a monthly projection of home prices using the CoreLogic HPI and other economic variables. Values are derived from state-level forecasts by weighting indices according to the number of owner-occupied households for each state.

“For the full year of 2014, home prices increased 7.4 percent, down from an 11.1-percent increase in 2013,” said Sam Khater, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic. “Nationally, home price growth moderated and stabilized at 5 percent the last four months of the year. The moderation can be clearly seen at the state level, with Colorado, Texas and New York at the high end of appreciation, ending the year with increases of about 8 percent.  This contrasts with previous appreciation rates in the double digits—for instance, Nevada and California which experienced increases of more than 20 percent earlier in 2014.”

“Nationally, home price appreciation took a pause in November and December 2014 and we expect a slow start to 2015,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “As the year progresses, we expect upward pressure as low inventories and more first-time buyers drive up home prices.”

Highlights as of December 2014:

• Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were:  Colorado (+8.4 percent), Texas (+7.8 percent), New York (+7.6 percent), Nevada (+7.3 percent) and Michigan (+7.2 percent).
• Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were: New York (+8.0 percent), Colorado (+7.8 percent), Massachusetts (+7.2 percent), Texas (+7.1 percent) and Nevada (+7.1 percent).
• Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the national HPI (from April 2006 to December 2014) was -13.4 percent. Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI for the same period was -9.6 percent.
• Including distressed sales, the five-year HPI change (from December 2009 to December 2014) was 18.9 percent.
• The five states with the largest peak-to-current declines, including distressed transactions, were: Nevada (-36 percent), Florida (-33.5 percent), Arizona (-29.5 percent), Rhode Island (-29.1 percent) and Connecticut (-25.2 percent).
• Including distressed sales, the U.S. has experienced 34 consecutive months of year-over-year increases; however, the national increase is no longer posting double-digits.
• Eighty-nine of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by population showed year-over-year increases in December 2014. The 11 CBSAs that showed year-over-year declines were: Worcester, MA-CT (-2.5 percent); Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT (-2.3 percent); Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD (-1.9 percent); Memphis, TN-MS-AR (-1.1 percent); McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX (-1.0 percent); New Haven-Milford, CT (-0.9 percent); Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR (-0.8 percent); Winston-Salem, NC (-0.6 percent); Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT (-0.4 percent); Rochester, NY (-0.2 percent) and Wilmington, DE-MD-NJ (-0.03 percent).

*November data was revised. Revisions with public records data are standard, and to ensure accuracy, CoreLogic incorporates the newly released public data to provide updated results.
** The forecast accuracy represents a 95-percent statistical confidence interval with a +/- 2.0 percent margin of error for the index including distressed sales and a +/- 1.9 percent margin of error for the index excluding distressed sales.

December HPI for the Country's Largest CBSAs by Population (Ranke