U.S. home prices increased 0.6% in September compared with August and were up 6.4% compared with September 2014, according to CoreLogic's home price index (HPI). The report includes distressed sales.
The firm is forecasting that home prices will increase 4.7% between September and September 2016. However, home prices could potentially dip slightly month over month from September to October.
‘After nearly 10 years of very high home price volatility, home price increases have been remarkably stable for the last 15 months, ranging between a 4.8 percent and 6.5 percent year-over-year increase,’ says Sam Khater, deputy chief economist for CoreLogic, in a statement. ‘Home price volatility is now back to the long-term trend prior to the boom and bust which is a good barometer of the market's stability and health.’
‘The continued growth in home prices is welcome news for many homeowners but more markets are becoming overvalued. In the near term, this trend is likely to continue and pose evaluated risks to the housing economy,’ adds Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. ‘More has to be done to expand inventories if we are going to address the emerging affordability crisis, especially in hot markets like California and Colorado.’
Colorado and Washington (which happen to be the two states where recreational marijuana use was recently made legal) saw the most home price appreciation, year over year, in September, at 10.4% and 10.0%, respectively.