According to the latest statistics from CoreLogic, national home prices rose by 6.3 percent in November 2015 compared to prices in November 2014. The increase from the previous month was 0.5 percent.
Several reasons were cited for the sustained jump in home prices over the last year, including high demand and low supply in many of the major markets, which has been a boon to current homeowners. However, income has been lagging behind prices for several years running, and this has made homes increasingly unaffordable in some local markets.
The CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) Forecast projects that this increase in prices will continue through at least the next year. Even though prices are expected to remain steady from November 2015 to December 2015, the year-to-year increase ending November 2016 is predicted to be 5.4 percent.
“Heading into 2016, home-price growth remains in its sweet spot as prices have increased between 5 percent and 6 percent on a year-over-year basis for 16 consecutive months,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. “Regionally, we are beginning to see fissures with slowdowns in some Texas and California markets, but the Northwest and Southeast remain on solid footing.”
The CoreLogic HPI is acknowledged by the real-estate industry as one of the most reliable indices on home-price trends in the country. The HPI is based on 30 years of sales-transaction data from public records and securities databases, and it covers the national market all the way down to the ZIP-code level.
CoreLogic HPI Forecast covers five years, is compiled through a two-stage system that accounts for disposable income per capita and corrects errors caused by short-term economic fluctuations.