Utah's December home price hike less than nation's

Salt Lake City area home prices continue to creep up, according to the latest report from CoreLogic, a property information and analytics company located in Irvine, California.

In December, area prices were 9.0 percent higher than the year before, thanks to a modest increase of 0.2 percent from November. The pricing numbers in the CoreLogic Home Price Index include distressed sales such as foreclosures and short sales.

Nationwide, CoreLogic reported a month-over-month increase from November to December of 0.8 percent resulting in an annual increase of 7.2 percent. Again, both figure include distressed sales.

The CoreLogic HPI Forecast predicts that home price increases will slow to 4.7 percent on a year-over-year over the next 12 months. On a month-over-month basis home prices are expected to increase by 0.1 percent from December to January when surveys are completes. The CoreLogic HPI Forecast is a projection of home prices using the CoreLogic HPI and other economic variables.

“As of the end of 2016, the CoreLogic national index was 3.9 percent below the peak reached in April 2006,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “We expect our national index to rise 4.7 percent during 2017, which would put homes prices at a new nominal peak before the end of this year.”