Home prices increased both year over year and month over month during July, according to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI).
The HPI found that home prices increased by 6.7 percent from July 2016 to July 2017. Prices increased by 0.9 percent in July 2017 compared with June 2017. CoreLogic predicts that average home prices will increase 5 percent through July 2018.
“In July, home price growth in the Pacific Northwest and mountain states led the nation with the highest appreciation rates,” CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft said in a release. “The sharp increase in prices in Washington and Utah has been especially striking, with home price growth in both states accelerating by 3 percentage points since the beginning of this year.”
CoreLogic said 34 percent of cities in the U.S. had an overvalued housing stock in July.
“Home prices in July continued to rise at a solid pace with no signs of slowing down,”CoreLogic President and CEO Frank Martell said. “The combination of steadily rising purchase demand along with very tight inventory of unsold homes should keep upward pressure on home prices for the remainder of this year. While mortgage interest rates remain low, affordability cracks are emerging as over a third of U.S. top cities are now overvalued.”