South Dakota tops CoreLogic home price appreciation index in January

CoreLogic’s Home Price Index revealed home prices, including distressed sales, declined on a year-over-year basis by 3.1 percent in January 2012 and by 1.0 percent compared to January 2012, the sixth consecutive monthly decline.

Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices declined by 0.9 percent in January 2012 compared to January 2011; that same metric, however, posted a month-over-month gain, rising 0.7 percent in January. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate-owned (REO) transactions.

Highlights of the report are as follows:

• Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest appreciation were: South Dakota (+5.7 percent), North Dakota (+4 percent), West Virginia (+4 percent), Montana (+3.6 percent) and Michigan (+3 percent).

• Including distressed sales, the five states with the greatest depreciation were: Illinois (-8.7 percent), Nevada (-8 percent), Delaware (-7.9 percent), Alabama (-7.7 percent) and Georgia (-7.5 percent).

• Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest appreciation were: South Dakota (+6.4 percent), Montana (+5.9 percent), North Dakota (+3.8 percent), Alaska (+3.7 percent) and Indiana (+2.7 percent).

• Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the greatest depreciation were: Nevada (-6.7 percent), Delaware (-5.5 percent), Minnesota (-4.1 percent), New Jersey (-3.5 percent) and Georgia (-3.3 percent).

"Although home price declines are slowly improving and not far from the bottom, home prices are down to nearly the same levels as 10 years ago," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.

Registered users can download the full report here.