Salt Lake market housing prices remain strong

Home prices in the Salt Lake City market continued strong in February, according to a report released last week by property analytics and information provider CoreLogic of Irvine, California. The CoreLogic Home Price Index showed a 1.5 percent increase from January, bringing the growth rate for the past 12 months to 10.2 percent. Both the month-over-month and annual numbers include distressed sales such as foreclosures and short sales.

Nationwide, sales prices increased by 1 percent in February over January. The annualized prices increased to 7 percent.

CoreLogic also released its HPI Forecast report for Febraury. According to the report, home prices are expected to increase nationwide by 4.7 percent from February 2017 to February 2018 and by 0.4 percent from February to March. 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.

“Home prices and rents have risen the most in local markets with high demand and limited supply, such as Seattle, Portland and Denver,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “The rise in housing costs has been largest for lower-tier-priced homes. For example, from December to February in Seattle, the CoreLogic Home Price Index rose 12 percent and our single-family rent index rose 6 percent for all price tiers compared with the same period a year earlier. However, when looking at only lower-cost homes in Seattle, the price increase was 13 percent and the rent increase was 7 percent.”

“Home prices continue to grow at a torrid pace so far in 2017 and these gains are likely to continue well into the future,” said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Home prices are at peak levels in many major markets and the appreciation is being driven by a number of dynamics-high demand, stronger employment, lean supplies and affordability.”