Home prices maintain month-to-month and year-to-year increases

Compared to December 2016, home prices in December 2017 rose 6.6 percent, and increased by 0.5 percent from November 2017.

CoreLogic Home Price Insights for December 2017 also predicts that prices will increase 4.3 percent by the end of 2018. However, it is anticipated that home prices will decrease from December 2017 to January 2018.

“The number of homes for sale has remained very low. Job growth lowered the unemployment rate to 4.1 percent by year’s end, the lowest level in 17 years,” CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft said in the report. “Rising income and consumer confidence has increased the number of prospective homebuyers. The net result of rising demand and limited for-sale inventory is a continued appreciation in home prices.”

In Pennsylvania, home prices rose 3.8 percent from December 2016 to December 2017, and were up 0.2 percent month-to-month. Home prices are predicted to increase slightly more than the national level in the commonwealth, at 4.6 percent by the end of 2018.

Across the country’s 100 largest metros, more than one-third have overvalued housing stock, 28 percent are undervalued and 37 percent are priced appropriately, the report found. In Pennsylvania, again both State College and the Bloomsburg/Berwick area have overvalued properties. The majority of Pennsylvania metros are undervalued or normal.

“Home prices continue to rise as a result of aggressive monetary policy, the economic and jobs recovery and a lack of housing stock,” Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic said in the report. “As home prices and the cost of originating loans rise, affordability continues to erode, making it more challenging for both first-time buyers and moderate-income families to buy.”