Atlanta area home prices tied for the fourth-largest rise during the past year, according to a report issued Tuesday.
Metro Atlanta prices were up 9 percent in August compared to that month a year ago, despite a 0.1 percent decline during August of 2014, said CoreLogic, a California-based real estate data company.
Atlanta’s home price increase was a little less robust if distressed properties are removed from the calculation: up 7.1 percent during the year.
Nationally, home prices were up 6.4 percent from August to August, including distressed properties, according to CoreLogic. August of 2014 saw a 0.3 percent price increase nationally.
Houston led the nation with an 11.4 percent price increase over the past 12 months, followed by Riverside-San Bernadino, Calif., and Los Angeles. Behind them, metro Atlanta was tied with metro Dallas.
However, not counting distressed properties, Dallas saw an 8.5 percent increase compared with Atlanta’s 7.1 percent. Dallas was not as hard hit by the housing crisis.
Data on distressed properties include “short” sales – transactions in which a lender agrees to accept whatever money the sale brings, even if it is not as much as the borrower still owes on the mortgage. Often, the sale price of those homes is far below the original purchase price, but at – or above – the current market price.
CoreLogic has not typically been the most closely watched monthly report, but each set of data is slightly different, adding a slightly different view.
For example, the most recent release of the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed Atlanta’s average home prices rising 6.7 percent from a year earlier. The median sale price of a metro Atlanta home was $225,000, according to the most recent report by the Atlanta Board of Realtors.
Unlike most other reports, CoreLogic also makes predictions – at least for the national picture. The company’s prognosticators say the future will look a lot like the recent past: continuing increases at a slow pace.
Home prices will go up 4.7 percent over the coming year, CoreLogic forecasts.
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