CoreLogic: Home Prices Up Year-Over-Year, But Not Around Chicago

There’s been a lot of talk lately about a supposed recovery in the U.S. housing market.

Fueling such chatter is a report released earlier this morning from Irvine, California-based real estate analytics and services provider CoreLogic concerning home prices. From their website:

CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), a leading provider of information, analytics and business services, today released its October CoreLogic HPI report. Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased on a year-over-year basis by 6.3 percent in October 2012 compared to October 2011. This change represents the biggest increase since June 2006 and the eighth consecutive increase in home prices nationally on a year-over-year basis. On a month-over-month basis, including distressed sales, home prices decreased by 0.2 percent in October 2012 compared to September 2012…

I noticed the following in the “Highlights” section of this latest report:

Including distressed sales, the five states with the greatest home price depreciation were: Illinois (-2.7 percent), Delaware (-2.7 percent), Rhode Island (-0.6 percent), New Jersey (-0.6 percent) and Alabama (-0.3 percent).

Once again, Illinois is number one on a list you don’t want to be at the top of.

Reuters (with Chicago Tribune real estate reporter Mary Ellen Podmolik contributing) published the following on the Tribune website this morning as it concerns CoreLogic findings for the Chicagoland area:

In the Chicago area, October home prices fell 2.3 percent compared with a year ago and were down 1.1 percent since September.

Down 2.3 percent year-over-year? No recovery here.

Interestingly, I noticed the following uttered twice in the piece:

Excluding distressed sales…

Followed by prices rose or were up.

You don’t say?

Is it just me, or does excluding distressed sales skew home price calculations to the upside, making the housing market look better than it really is?

You can read the entire CoreLogic report on their website here.

Source:

“CoreLogic: U.S. home prices show biggest annual gain since June 2006.” Reuters. 4 Dec. 2012. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-corelogic-us-home-prices-show-biggest-annual-gain-since-june-2006-20121204,0,5529349.story). 4 Dec. 2012.