September Home Prices Keep Rising

Home prices in September were up 1.1 percent from August and up 6.3 percent from a year ago, according to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Index report.

Among the states, Washington and Oregon saw the greatest year-over-year price appreciation, with increases of 10.3 percent and 10.1 percent, respectively. The only states with negative price growth were Alaska (down 0.3 percent) and Connecticut (down 1.4 percent).

CoreLogic is also forecasting that home prices will increase by 5.2 percent on a year-over-year basis from September 2016 to September 2017, and on a month-over-month basis home prices are expected to increase by 0.3 percent from September to October.

"Home-equity wealth has doubled during the last five years to $13 trillion, largely because of the recovery in home prices," said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "Nationwide during the past year, the average gain in housing wealth was about $11,000 per homeowner, but with wide geographic variation."