National Home Prices Nearing Pre-Crash Levels

Home prices keep edging closer to pre-crash price levels and today's Home Price Index report from Lender Processing Services (LPS) indicates that national prices are now back within 15.2 percent of that peak.  The index for June rose to $229,000 from 226,000 in May, an increase of 1.2 percent and is up 6.9 percent from the end of last year.  The peak, in June 2006, was $270,000.

LPS used its loan-level databases and June 2013 residential real estate transactions to conduct a repeat sales analysis of home prices.  The LPS HPI represents the price of non-distressed sales by taking into account price discounts for bank-owned real estate (REO) and short sales.

States with the biggest month-over-month appreciation were Nevada, up 2.4 percent, Florida, 1.7 percent, and California and Illinois at 1.6 percent each.  Other states with increases exceeding one percent in a month were Delaware, Georgia, Utah, North Dakota, Colorado, and Arizona. 

All states showed some appreciation from May to June but the smallest gains were in Nebraska at 0.4 percent, Alaska at 0.5 percent, and Iowa at 0.6 percent. 

The large metropolitan areas with the best performance during the month were among those hardest hit by the housing crisis - Stockton, California, up 2.6 percent; Las Vegas up 2.6 percent and Sacramento and Vallejo, California up 2.4 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.  Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Ocean City, New Jersey were at the other end of the scale, each posting 0.2 percent increases followed by Bremerton, Washington at 0.3 percent.

Among the 20 largest states, the only ones for which LPS provides detailed information, several have HPI's substantially above the national average.  California's HPI in June was $381,000, Massachusetts, $362,000; New York, $321,000; Virginia, 311,000; and New Jersey, $301,000.  Two of these states are still significantly below their peaks, California down 26.3 percent, and New Jersey, 21.2 percent.  Massachusetts is only 10 percent off of its peak and Pennsylvania and Tennessee, each of which have posted over 3 percent appreciation since the first of the year, are now down only 5 percent from pre-crash highs.  Both Texas and Colorado, had surpassed their pre-crash peaks by May.