CoreLogic Report – Florida Home Prices are Rising

Florida was one of the hardest hit areas when the real estate market turned starting in 2006-2007 and has seen a significant drop in prices.  However, sales have been strong the last few years and with strong sales and a dramatically lower inventory of properties for sale, there is some increase in prices starting to occur.

This is reflected in a report from CoreLogic, an information and analytics provider that comes out each month with a Home Price Index (HPI) report.  Here’s what they’ve found:

“House prices, based on data through February, continue to decline, but at a decreasing rate. The deceleration in the pace of decline is a first step toward ultimately growing again,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Excluding distressed sales, we already see modest price appreciation month over month in January and February.”“The continued strength of sales activity and tightening inventories in many markets are early and hopeful signs that prices will continue to stabilize and improve in the coming months. In fact, non-distressed home sale prices, which represent two-thirds of all sales, have appreciated by just over 1.0 percent since the beginning of the year,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic.

Highlights as of February 2012

Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest appreciation were: West Virginia (+8.6 percent), Michigan (+5.8 percent), Florida (+4.7 percent), Arizona (+4.5 percent) and South Dakota (+4.1 percent).
Read the full press release from CoreLogic.

I still think that the backlogged foreclosures that will be coming on the market in the upcoming months will have an effect of slowing price recovery but not reversing it. Let’s see what happens.