Home Prices at Levels of 10 Years Ago

By Kyle Chezum Updated on 9/25/2013

For the sixth month in a row, home prices slipped and the real estate market declined nationwide in the month of January according to Corelogic, a Santa Ana, California based data and analytics firm. 

Corelogic's data shows that home prices including those on distressed sales (foreclosure and bank-owned), slipped 3.1% in January from a year earlier and dropped 1% from December of 2011. If distressed home sales are to be excluded, the price drop was 0.9% in January compared to a year earlier.

This shows that even though residential real estate declines are slowly getting less steep and near their bottom, home prices are actually down to what they were in 2002, 10 years ago and before the real estate bubble.

There are states that actually have realized price increases in January.  These states are: South Dakota, (up 5.7%), West Virginia and North Dakota (both up 4%), Michigan and Montana (up in 3.0-3.6% range).

On the flip side, the following are states that lost most of their home values: Illinois (down 8.7%), Nevada, Delaware, Alabama and Georgia

The HARP II Mortgage Program could have not come at a better time to help underwater homeowners be able to refinance.

The home prices have dropped from the peak levels of April 2006 at a steep level of 34% and 24.2% when excluding distressed assets.