Home prices inch up in August

Home prices continue to creep up, both year-to-year and month-to-month.

In August, home prices across the country rose 6.9 percent year-over-year, and nearly 1 percent from July 2017, according to CoreLogic’s Home Price Insights for August 2017. The organization predicts home prices will increase 4.7 percent year-to-year and 0.1 percent by September 2017’s report.

“While growth in home sales has stalled due to a lack of inventory during the last few months, the tight inventory has actually helped stabilize price growth. Over the last three years, price growth in the CoreLogic national index has been between 5 percent and 7 percent per year, and CoreLogic expects home prices to increase about 5 percent by this time next year,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic.

In Pennsylvania, prices only rose 3.2 percent year-to-year, and 0.1 percent month-to-month. CoreLogic predicts that the cost will rise 4.3 percent by August 2018, and 0.3 percent in September 2017. Across the state, most properties are undervalued, with a few properly priced, the exception of Scranton and the Bloomsburg/Berwick area, where properties are more likely to be overvalued.

Across the country, 34 of the 100 largest metros have overvalued properties. Twenty-seven are undervalued, and 39 were at-value properties. Las Vegas had the highest increase year-to-year in a major metro, rising 8.4 percent, while Utah and Washington both had year-to-year double-digit price increases.

“Nearly half of the nation’s largest 50 markets are overvalued,” said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “The lack of real estate affordability has spread beyond the typically expensive coasts into the interior of the nation, hitting cities such as Denver, Nashville, Austin and Dallas.”