June report: Home prices up 6.8 percent year-to-year

Across the country, home prices rose 6.8 percent year-to-year in June, and increased 0.7 percent from May.

The CoreLogic HPI Forecast predicts that home prices will grow 5.1 percent from June 2018 to June 2019, but remain the same for July 2018. In Pennsylvania, home prices only rose 3.3 percent from June 2017 to June 2018, and increased 0.4 percent from May 2018. CoreLogic predicts home prices will go up 5.8 percent year-to-year in June 2019, and rise 0.6 percent month-to-month in July. Metro areas in the commonwealth continue to be mainly undervalued or at-value, with the exception of State College and the Bloomsburg-Berwick area, which both have been overvalued for several months, and are expected to remain that way.

“The rise in home prices and interest rates over the past year have eroded affordability and are beginning to slow existing home sales in some markets,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Further increases in home prices and mortgage rates over the next year will likely dampen sales and home-price growth.”

The report also found that younger renters are more likely than older renters to want to buy a home in the next year. The top reason renters across all generations for not in purchasing right now is because their current living situation is adequate for their current needs. Affordability is the second most popular factor as to why some renters do not plan to own right now.

“One-third of millennial renters reported feeling they cannot afford a down payment to buy a home,” said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “With home prices rising quickly over the past few years and supplies low, first-time homebuyers face ever-growing challenges to find and buy affordable entry-level homes. More needs to be done to help our first-time buyers join the homeownership class.”