Clear Capital: Washington Area Home Prices Rise 7.5% over May 2011

The latest Clear Capital Home Data Index Market Report -- with data through May 2012 -- was released June 5. Washington ranked 4th among the top 15 Highest Performing Metro markets nationwide with an annual gain in prices of 7.5% over May 2011.  This is the 8th consecutive month Clear Capital has ranked DC-Arlington-Alexandria among the top 10 housing markets in the country.

For a more detailed discussion of differences in research methodologies and resultant statistics take a look at my recent blog post How to Evaluate Housing Reports. 

 Washington Area

The Washington Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) -- which includes the District, Arlington, Alexandria -- report the following:

• Washington metro home prices are up 7.5% over May 2011
• area home prices rose 5.1% over the previous rolling quarter

Nationwide

National home prices grew on both a quarterly and yearly basis for the first time since August 2010.

• home prices showed a mild annual gain of 0.1%, which is the first time the U.S. has seen yearly gains since September of 2010
• home prices increased 0.4% from the previous rolling quarter, the first quarterly gain since November of 2011

The price gains seen at the national, regional and metro levels are being driven in part by the significant increases in the prices of distressed properties. In fact, national REO-only gains of 8.1% over the last year on a median price-per-square-foot basis have outpaced non-REO price declines of -0.7% by 8.8 percentage points.

Clear Capital is a premium provider of data for real estate asset valuation and risk assessment for large financial services companies. The Company's customers include the largest U.S. banks, investment firms and other financial organizations.

Read the full report here.