Home prices as measured by the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) had the largest annual increase in January that it had experienced since April 2006.  The January number was up 9.7 percent from January 2012 and represented the 11th consecutive month the HPI, which includes distressed sales, increased from its level one year earlier. The index was up 0.7 percent from December.  All but two states, Delaware and Illinois are experiencing year-over-year price gains. 

The HPI which excludes distressed sales was up 9.0 percent compared to one year earlier and 1.8 percent from December.  There were no states in which prices of homes, excluding distressed sales, i.e. lender-owned real estate (REO) or short sales, declined on an annual basis.  

CoreLogic's Pending HPI indicates that February 2013 home prices, including distressed sales, will rise by 9.7 percent on a year-over-year basis from February 2012 and fall by 0.3 percent on a month-over-month basis from January 2013, reflecting a seasonal winter slowdown. Excluding distressed sales, the annual increase in February is expected to rise 11.3 percent from February 2012 and 1.8 percent compared to January 2013. The Pending HPI is a proprietary metric that maps trends in home prices based on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data measuring price changes for the most recent month.

"The HPI showed strong growth during the typically slow winter season," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. "With these gains, the housing market is poised to enter the spring selling season on sound footing. The improvements are materializing across the country, with all but Delaware and Illinois showing increasing HPI and 15 states within 10 percent of their peak values."

"Home prices continued to gather steam across a broad swath of the country in January, continuing the positive trend we saw during most of 2012," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Many states across the western U.S. and along the East Coast saw average price gains of more than 6 percent, which is likely to boost home sale activity into the first half of 2013."

Of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas measured by population, 92 showed year-over-year increases on the HPI in January, up from 87 in December. 

 The states with the highest home price appreciation including distressed sales were Arizona (+20.1 percent), Nevada (+17.4 percent), Idaho (+14.9 percent), California (+14.1 percent) and Hawaii (+14.0 percent).  Illinois and Delaware posted price depreciation of 0.4 and 0.1 percent respectively.

Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were: Nevada (+17.5 percent), Arizona (+16.5 percent), California (+14.5 percent), Hawaii (+13.9 percent) and Idaho (+13.2 percent).

The peak to current change in the national HPI (from April 2006 to January 2013) was -26.4 percent including distressed transactions and -19.9 percent excluding those sales with Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, and Rhode Island all posting declines exceeding 35 percent.