A year after record-setting declines, the slide in national housing prices appears to be nearing an end. CoreLogic projects overall price appreciation of 4.5% over the next 12 months.
National home prices were down less than 1% in January compared to one year earlier, and down 1.9% from the previous month, according to First American CoreLogic’s monthly home price index (HPI).
The 0.7% year-over-year decline in January was better than the 3.4% decrease in December. January’s narrowed decline comes exactly one year after the CoreLogic HPI took its biggest annual decline in the 30-year history of the index.
Excluding distressed sales, prices declined 0.4% year-over-year in January, CoreLogic said. That’s better than 3.3% in December 2009.
CoreLogic projects house prices will continue to decline another 3.7% into the spring before bottoming out in April. After prices begin to stabilize, there will be a modest recovery for the balance of 2010. Excluding distressed sales, prices are projected to decreased only another 0.9%.
