Home prices jumped by 1.8 percent nationally during the month of July.   CoreLogic reported that values on its Home Price Index (HPI) which excludes sales of distressed homes, rose in every state during the month, and when distressed prices are included only one state, Delaware, posted a drop in its HPI.

The annual rate of increase on the HPI is 12.4 percent and is the 17^th consecutive month in which the year-over-year index values have increased on a national basis.  When distressed sales (short sales and lender-owned real estate or ORE) are included the annual appreciation is 11.4 percent and the increase from June was 1.7 percent.

The states with the highest annual appreciation are largely those that suffered the greatest hits to home values since the bubble burst in 2007 and most were also hard-hit by foreclosures.  Including distressed sales, Nevada's prices have risen 27 percent, California is up 23.2 percent from July 2012 followed by Arizona (17 percent), Wyoming (16.4 percent), and Oregon 15 percent.

When distressed sales are excluded from the analysis Nevada, California, and Arizona still lead the way with annual increases of 24.2 percent, 20.2 percent, and 14.9 percent respectively.  Utah and Florida round out the top five, each with annual increases of 13.5 percent.

"Home prices continue to climb across the nation in July with markets hit hardest during the downturn leading the way," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Nationally, home prices are now within 18 percent of their peak levels reached in April of 2006."

CoreLogic expects the price acceleration to slow a bit in August but still increase by 0.4 percent from July including distressed sales and 1.2 percent with those sales excluded.  On an annual basis CoreLogic's Pending HPI indicates an increase including distressed sales of 12.3 percent and 12.2 percent excluding distressed sales.  The Pending HPI is a proprietary metric based on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data that measure price changes for the most recent month.

"Home prices continued to surge in July," said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. "Looking ahead to the second half of the year, price growth is expected to slow as seasonal demand wanes and higher mortgage rates have a marginal impact on home purchase demand."

Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the national HPI (from April 2006 to July 2013) was -17.6 percent. Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI for the same period was -12.9 percent.  Despite recent double digit increases Nevada is still down 43 percent from its pre-crash peak, Florida is off by 37.4 percent, and Arizona by 32.5 percent.  Other states that are far from recovery are Rhode Island (-29.7 percent) and Michigan (-27.7 percent).

Of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by population, 99 were showing year-over-year increases in July, equaling the measure in June 2013.