CoreLogic: October Home Prices Up 3.5%

CoreLogic, Irvine, Calif., said home prices increased nationally by 3.5% year over year in October and by 0.5% month over month.

The company’s monthly Home Price Index reported 35% of the nation’s top 100 metropolitan areas have an “overvalued” housing market as of October. Twenty-seven percent of the top 100 metropolitan areas were undervalued, while 38% were at value. When looking at only the top 50 markets based on housing stock, 40% were overvalued, 20% were undervalued and 40% were at value in October.

“Local home-price growth can deviate widely from the change in our U.S. index,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist with CoreLogic. “While we saw prices up 3.5% nationally last year, home prices also declined in 22 metropolitan areas. Price softness occurred in some high-cost urban areas and in metros with weak employment growth during the past year.”

Looking ahead, CoreLogic said its forecast indicates annual price growth of 5.4% through next year. On a month-over-month basis, the forecast calls for home prices to increase by 0.2% through November.

During the second quarter, CoreLogic, together with RTi Research of Norwalk, Connecticut, conducted a survey measuring consumer-housing sentiment among millennials. The survey showed that millennials are mostly unconcerned about qualifying for a mortgage. Three out of four millennials, or 75%, say they are confident they would qualify for a loan with their current financial situation. Still, despite this confidence, more than half of the cohort cites buying a home as a stressful experience, noting spending the majority of their savings as one of the leading stressors.