The CoreLogic HPI increased 7.4 percent in November, boasting its best numbers since May 2006.

By Peter Ricci

Home prices increased 7.4 percent from November 2011 to November 2012 in the lastest CoreLogic HPI, which is the ninth straight month of year-over-year home price increases and the strongest showing from home prices since May 2006.

Home prices even increased monthly in the CoreLogic HPI, defying normal seasonal trends; from October to November, prices were up 0.3 percent.

CoreLogic HPI – Showing Sustainable Increases

Anand Nallathambi, the president and CEO of CoreLogic, said that the sustainable home price increases seen in the CoreLogic HPI are a big deal for housing, and they suggest good things going forward in 2013.

“For the first time in almost six years, most U.S. markets experienced sustained increases in home prices in 2012,” Nallathambi said. “We still have a long way to go to return to 2005-2006 levels, but all signals currently point to a progressive stabilization of the housing market and the positive trend in home price appreciation to continue into 2013.”

And CoreLogic’s Pending HPI, which measures MLS data to predict the next month’s CoreLogic HPI, is expecting similarly strong numbers in December; according to CoreLogic, home prices should rise 7.9 percent year-over-year in December, but fall 0.5 percent from November to December due to the winter slowdown (excluding distressed sales, though, home prices will go up 0.7 percent monthly).

FNC Residential Price Index – Similarly Positive for Housing

The CoreLogic HPI, though, was not the only price index to see positive trends in the housing market.

FNC’s latest Residential Price Index, which studies non-distressed home sales (both new and existing) in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan markets, found that home prices increased 0.3 percent from October to November; that’s the ninth straight month of positive movement for the Residential Price Index, and so far, FNC has charted a 5.3 percent appreciation rate for home prices in 2012. Similarly, for the 12 months ending in November, home prices increased 4.2 percent, the largest yearly increases for the Residential Price Index since October 2006.

Interestingly, it also seems that home price gains have grown stronger as the year has progressed. For instance, though home prices were up 2.6 percent year-over-year in the September Residential Price Index, they were up 3.7 percent in October and 4.2 percent in November, and though monthly increases were a positive 0.2 percent for August and September, they were surpassed by the 0.3 percent in October.