Home prices post highest jump in nearly 7 years

Inman News reports that home prices rose more on an annual basis in February than they have in nearly seven years. Inman, a news service that focuses on real estate, cites a report released Wednesday by real estate analytics firm CoreLogic that showed overal home prices, including distressed sales (short sales and sales of bank-owned homes), jumped 10.2 percent on an annual basis in February, "marking the biggest year-over-year increase since March 2006." Home prices also rose for the 12th straight month in February, increasing 0.5 percent from January, according to the report.

"This month's annual price increase put home values at a level that is 26.3 percent below their peak before the housing meltdown," according to CoreLogic. "In the depths of the real estate slump, home prices plummeted by more than 30 percent from the pinnacle they reached during the boom, according to some home price indexes."

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