CoreLogic: Home Prices Show Sixth Consecutive Decline

National home prices declined 1.0 percent between December 2011 and January 2012, according to the latest home price index from ""CoreLogic"":http://www.corelogic.com. It represents the sixth consecutive month the company has recorded a month-over-month drop in residential property values.
[IMAGE] The stretch of depreciation is much longer when comparing year-over-year numbers. Based on data through the end of January, annual declines in home prices have continued for 18 months straight by CoreLogic's assessment. The company is reporting a 3.1 percent falloff in home prices between January 2011 and January 2012.

[COLUMN_BREAK]

├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├àÔÇ£Although home price declines are slowly improving and not far from the bottom, home prices are down to nearly the same levels as 10 years ago,├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├é┬Ø said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.

The 1.0 percent monthly and 3.1 percent annual declines seen in January include transactions involving distressed properties. CoreLogic provides a secondary set of results which illustrate just how much distressed properties such as short sales and REOs are weighing down home values.

Excluding distressed sales, month-over-month prices posted an increase of 0.7 percent between December 2011 and January 2012, and year-over-year prices slipped by just 0.9 percent.

Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest _appreciation_ in January were: South Dakota (+5.7 percent), North Dakota (+4.0 percent), West Virginia (+4.0 percent), Montana (+3.6 percent), and Michigan (+3.0 percent).

States with the greatest _depreciation_ during the month included: Illinois (-8.7 percent), Nevada (-8.0 percent), Delaware (-7.9 percent), Alabama (-7.7 percent), and Georgia (-7.5 percent).