Houston continues to climb its way up the economic ladder: Local home prices, including prices connected to the sale of distressed properties, increased by 4.73 percent in May of this year compared to May 2009, according to CoreLogic's Home Price Index.
That brings the city in once again at a higher rate than the nation as a whole. Comparatively, the home price index for the Houston/Sugar Land/Baytown area in April was 5.35-percent higher than in April 2009.
Houston boasts the fourth-largest increase nationwide, behind Riverside/San Bernardino/Ontario, Calif. (7.9 percent), Washington, DC/Arlington, Va./Alexandria, Va. (6.7 percent), and Los Angeles/Long Beach/Glendale, Calif. (5.6 percent). Nationally, home prices (including distressed sales), increased 2.9 percent in May compared to one year ago — a big boost from January's decline of 0.5 percent, yet below April 2010's increase of 3.5 percent over last year.
Says CoreLogic's chief economist Mark Fleming, "Home price appreciation stabilized as homebuyer tax credit driven sales peaked in late spring," adding, "But given that the labor market and income growth remain tepid we expect prices to moderate and possibly decline the rest of the year."
But for the remainder of 2010, we can only expect Houston to continue to beat the recession with elevated home prices — not necessarily the best news for local consumers, but cementing the city's national rep as an economic powerhouse.
