U.S. Home Prices Up 6.7 Percent Year Over Year in March

---

Forecasted to Increase of 5.3 Percent by March 2017

Based on CoreLogic's latest Home Price Index (HPI) for March 2016, U.S. home prices are up both year over year and month over month.

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased year over year by 6.7 percent in March 2016 compared with March 2015 and increased month over month by 2.1 percent in March 2016 compared with February 2016, according to the CoreLogic HPI.

The CoreLogic HPI Forecast indicates that home prices will increase by 5.3 percent on a year-over-year basis from March 2016 to March 2017, and on a month-over-month basis home prices are expected to increase 0.7 percent from March 2016 to April 2016. The CoreLogic HPI Forecast is a projection of home prices using the CoreLogic HPI and other economic variables. Values are derived from state-level forecasts by weighting indices according to the number of owner-occupied households for each state.

"Housing helped keep U.S. economic growth afloat in the first quarter of 2016 as residential investment recorded its strongest gain since the end of 2012," said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "Low interest rates and increased home building suggest that housing will continue to be a growth driver."

"Home prices reached the bottom five years ago, and since then have appreciated almost 40 percent," said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "The highest appreciation was in the West, where prices continue to increase at double-digit rates."