REAL ESTATE TOPICS...West leads nation in home-price appreciation

And it's not projected to slow down anytime soon

Home-price appreciation has stayed strong for roughly a year now, and this trend doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon.  

According to the latest report from CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, home prices are up both year-over-year and month-over-month.

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, moved higher year-over-year by 6.7% in March 2016 compared with March 2015 and increased month-over-month by 2.1% in March 2016 compared with February 2016, according to the CoreLogic Home Price Index.

"Housing helped keep U.S. economic growth afloat in the first quarter of 2016 as residential investment recorded its strongest gain since the end of 2012," said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "Low interest rates and increased home building suggest that housing will continue to be a growth driver."

Looking the ahead, the trend is only estimated to continue, with the CoreLogic HPI Forecast indicating that home prices will increase by 5.3% on a year-over-year basis from March 2016 to March 2017, and on a month-over-month basis home prices are expected to increase 0.7% from March 2016 to April 2016.

"Home prices reached the bottom five years ago, and since then have appreciated almost 40%," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "The highest appreciation was in the West, where prices continue to increase at double-digit rates."

Recent reports on the housing economy have also touched on the West’s troubling housing market.

“Demand is starting to weaken in some areas, particularly in the West, where the median home price has risen an astonishing 38% in the past three years,” said Lawrence Yun,National Association of Realtors chief economist, in regards to latest pending home sales report.

Zillow Chief Economist Svenja Gudell said in the new home sales report, “So far this year, much of the softness in national new home sales numbers has been driven by weakness in the West region. In both January and March, new home sales in the West fell more than 20% month-over-month. Some, but not all, of this slack has been picked up in other areas of the country: Over the year, new home sales are down 20.7% in the West, but up 15.4% in the South.”