Home Prices up Again in May Black Knight says

The Home Price Index (HPI) released on Monday by Black Knight Financial Services showed another strong month-over-month gain for housing values in May.  The HPI increased by 0.9 percent to a value of $239,000 from $236,000 in April.  The index is up 3.4 percent from the beginning of 2014 when it registered at $231,000 and 5.4 percent from May 2013 when the value was $224,000.

Black Knight's Data and Analytics Division bases its HPI on residential real estate transactions combined with information from its own property and loan level databases.  This is used to produce a repeat sales analysis for more than 18,500 U.S. ZIP codes.

Prices accelerated the most in Rhode Island which was up 1.5 percent for the month and in Michigan, Colorado, and Connecticut, each of which rose +1.4 percent.  Five states, Idaho, Illinois, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Texas, tied with a 1.3 percent monthly increase.  At the bottom in terms of appreciation were Arizona (0.3 percent), Iowa (0.4) and Hawaii, New York, Nebraska, and Nevada, each with a 0.5 percent uptick.

Bridgeport, Houston, and Denver were the metro areas with the strongest showing, each with 1.6 percent monthly increases.  Grand Rapids was up 1.5 percent followed by three Connecticut cities, Norwich, New Haven, and Torrington, with 1.4 percent gains.  Tucson saw a 0.1 percent drop in its HPI and Lakeland Florida was unchanged from April to May.  Others at the bottom of Black Knight's metro list were Los Angles, Baton Rouge, and Oxnard (California), each with a minimal 0.2 percent gain.

National home prices are now 11.1 percent off of the peak of $268,000 established in June 2006.  Colorado and Texas again established new peaks in their HPI values. Among metro areas new peaks were set by Austin, Dallas, Houston, Denver, San Antonio, Nashville, and San Jose.