Home Prices Up

CoreLogic, a real estate data provider just reported that home prices in February increased by 10.2% over the year ago period. The February home price increases mark 12 months of annual price improvement.

The gains in home prices were very broadly based with 47 of 50 states showing home price improvement.

One of the main reasons for these improving home prices are the extremely low interest rates coupled with a shortage of available homes for sale. Actually, in January the available homes for sale reached a 13 year low! Now, for February, the homes available for sale did increase for the first time in 10 months.

Nationally, the best home price gains were in Nevada, Arizona and California. Here in California the February home price increase was an average of 15.3% over February 2012.

As far as biggest home price gains for various cities, the leader here was Phoenix, followed by Los Angeles and then Riverside, California.

Although this is great news, keep in mind that nationwide home prices are still off an average of 26% from their peak in April 2006

Home Prices Up