PROVIDENCE – The November Home Price Index in the Providence metropolitan area rose 7.6 percent year over year, 0.6 percentage points more than the national average of 7 percent, according to Corelogic Tuesday.
On a month-to-month basis, the HPI for the Providence-Warwick-Fall River metro area rose 0.1 percent, even as the national HPI increased 1 percent in that time.
The year-over-year single-family HPI increase in Rhode Island was even larger than the Providence metro area price increase, registring an 8 percent year-over-year uptick, the largest year-over-year HPI growth of any New England state in November.
New Hampshire had the second highest HPI growth in that time, increasing 7.1 percent.
Massachusetts ranked No. 3 in New England , with a 6.5 percent gain over the year, followed by Vermont (5 percent), Maine (4.1 percent) and Connecticut (2.4 percent).
Washington had the largest year-over-year HPI growth in November, rising 12.2 percent.
“Rising home prices are good news for home sellers, but add to the challenges that home buyers face,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Growing numbers of first-time buyers find limited for-sale inventory for lower-priced homes, leading to both higher rates of price growth for ‘starter’ homes and further erosion of affordability.”
Corelogic predicted that by November 2018, the national HPI will have increased 4.2 percent.
“Without a significant surge in new building and affordable housing stock, the relatively high level of growth in home prices of recent years will continue in most markets,” said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Although policymakers are increasingly looking for ways to address the lack of affordable housing, much more needs to be done soon to see a significant improvement over the medium term.”
Chris Bergenheim is the PBN web editor.
