They're not huge, but home prices still posting gains

The steady growth in home prices seen over the past few years continued through January with Salt Lake City market prices climbing 0.8 percent from December, according to property information and analytics company CoreLogic, based in Irvine, California.

The CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) reported the 12-month price hike rose to 9.7 percent from January 2016 in the Salt Lake City area. Both numbers include distressed sales such as foreclosures and short sales.

Nationwide, home prices are up both year-over-year and month-over-month. Prices rose 0.7 percent from December to January, leaving the 12-month increase at 6.9 percent, according to the HPI.

CoreLogic’s HPI Forecast predicts that home price gains will slow somewhat in 2017. The index says that home prices will add another 4.8 percent this year, gaining only 0.1 percent from January to February. The CoreLogic HPI Forecast is a projection of home prices using the CoreLogic HPI and other economic variables. Values are derived from state-level forecasts by weighting indices according to the number of owner-occupied households for each state, the service said.

“With lean for-sale inventories and low rental vacancy rates, many markets have seen housing prices outpace inflation,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Over the 12 months through January of this year, the CoreLogic Home Price Index recorded a 6.9 percent rise in home prices nationally and the CoreLogic Single-Family Rental Index was up 2.7 percent — both rising faster than inflation.”