CoreLogic Home Price Indexes Increase in June for 4th/5th Month, With Highest Yearly Gains in 6 Yrs.

CoreLogic released its monthly report today on June home prices based on its Home Price Index (HPI), along with its new Pending HPI for July, with these highlights:

1. Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased on a year-over-year basis by 2.5 percent in June 2012 compared to June 2011 (see top chart above). On a month-over-month basis, including distressed sales, home prices increased by 1.3 percent in June 2012 compared to May 2012. The June 2012 figures mark the fourth consecutive increase in home prices nationally on both a year-over-year and month-over-month basis.

2. Excluding distressed sales, home prices nationwide increased on a year-over-year basis by 3.2 percent in June 2012 compared to June 2011. On a month-over-month basis excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 2.0 percent in June 2012 compared to May 2012, the fifth consecutive month-over-month increase. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

3. The CoreLogic Pending HPI indicates that July home prices, including distressed sales, will rise by at least 0.4 percent on a month-over-month basis from June 2012 and by 2.0 percent on a year-over-year basis from July 2011. Excluding distressed sales, July house prices are also poised to rise by 1.4 percent month-over-month from June 2012 and by 4.3 percent year-over-year from July 2011. The CoreLogic Pending HPI is a new and exclusive metric that provides the most current indication of trends in home prices. It is based on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data that measure price changes in the most recent month.

4. “At the halfway point, 2012 is increasingly looking like the year that the residential housing market may have turned the corner,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “While first-half gains have given way to second-half declines over the past three years, we see encouraging signs that modest price gains are supportable across the country in the second-half of 2012.”

MP: A few more of my own highlights:

1. For CoreLogic's HPI excluding distressed sales, the 3.2% gain in June was the largest annual increase in six years, going back to the summer of 2006. 

2. For CoreLogic's combined HPI (including distressed sales), there were 15 states in June with 12-month increases of 4% or higher and 7 states with 12-month increases of 6% or more (see map above), led by Arizona (13.8%), Idaho (10.4%), South Dakota (10.1%), Utah (8.3%), Wyoming (7.7%), N. Dakota (6.3%) and Colorado (6.2%).

Bottom Line: With almost every new real estate report, evidence continues to accumulate that the housing market has passed the bottom and is in a new cycle of sustainable recovery.  Look for ongoing increases in home prices during the month of July, based on CoreLogic's Pending HPI estimate of a 4.3% gain, which would be the largest 12-month gain in more than six years.