As the housing market continues to come back around, more and more statistics are surfacing that give us hope for the future. According to our friends at Inman News, things are definitely looking up. CoreLogic’s home price index is dishing out some encouraging news – home prices are up significantly!

According to CoreLogic, home prices were up 0.7 percent in January from December. While that may not seem like a huge month-to-month increase, consider this: January’s year-over-year home prices made the biggest jump in seven years – national home prices were up in January by 9.7 percent from a year ago. This is the biggest increase since 2006.

CoreLogic’s home price index got these impressive findings by following the repeat sales of single-family homes.

Higher home prices means more confidence in the real estate market. For you, this means more people may be searching the internet to find a good, reliable real estate professional to help them find their dream home. Is your online reputation up to par? Will homebuyers find the best version of you there is to offer when they hit the search engines?

If you haven’t already, click here to download our FREE eBook, Maximizing Your Online Reputation: A Playbook for Engaging with Consumers and Winning Their Business. As the real estate market improves, be sure your online reputation doesn’t hold you back.

Great news to report! The numbers are in and according to S&P Case-Shiller Index, home prices at the end of January were at their highest since the housing bubble burst.

The index tracks home prices across the 20 largest housing markets in the nation and this January, the numbers were at their highest since June of 2006. As far as a year-over-year increase, prices rose 8.1%.

The best part of this report is that it shows that growth is widespread; it’s not unique to any particular area. Each of the 20 housing markets posted gains and the pace of increase was faster in every market except one.

Phoenix, Arizona, saw the biggest jump, boasting a 23% gain. New York had the smallest gain with prices only going up 0.7%. But an increase is still an increase!

While this news is encouraging for sure, we still have a lot of ground to cover. The overall index is still down just over 28% from 2006.

Have you seen an increase in home prices in your market? Are more buyers taking the plunge? Download and share this free home buying eBook with your clients!

Homes.com recently released the Local Market Index and Rebound Reports indicating that the housing market is steadily recovering from the effects of the great recession.  Additionally, the National Association of Realtors® reported that the U.S. housing market is ‘solidly recovering.’  As home price gains momentum, more homeowners are becoming increasingly comfortable with bringing their homes to the market.  But will an increase in the nation’s housing supply cause these gains be short-lived?

According to an annual survey from Fannie Mae, American confidence in the ability to buy and sell a home ascended sharply due to recent strong home price gains. In fact, the share of respondents who say now is a good time to sell a home reached a record high of 40 percent, compared to 30 percent in April and 16 percent one year ago.

Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae, stated that this was the largest increase in the survey’s three-year history and this jump may foreshadow a gradual return to more normal levels of housing supply from their lows of recent months. Duncan continues by saying that “the increased housing supply could serve to temper increasing consumer home price expectations.”

This means that the recent boost in home values is a result of there not being sufficient inventory on the market to satisfy buyer needs, so when a home does sell it can be sold at a higher price. What is going unnoticed is that as more homes flood the market, their values will lessen and consumers will not receive the higher returns as expected.

Although flooding the market may decrease returns, the lessened ability of buyers to finance these homes may preserve the higher home price expectations. According to the report, 50 percent of Americans think that it would be difficult to get a mortgage and 46 percent believe that mortgage rates will go up. Duncan concluded by saying, “We will closely watch the potential impact of rising mortgage rates on consumer housing sentiment in the coming months.”

Here are some key highlights from Fannie Mae’s survey:

• At 76 and 40 percent respectively, respondents reported that it’s a good time to buy and  sell a house reached survey highs

• The average 12-month home price change expectation jumped to 3.9 percent, the highest level since the survey’s inception.

• The share of respondents who said they would buy if they were going to move increased slightly to 66 percent. 

• The share of people who say home prices will go up in the next 12 months hit a survey high of 55 percent, while those who say home prices will go down dropped to 7 percent, the lowest level since the survey’s inception.

Read the entire Fannie Mae survey to learn more. Do you think it’s really a good time for sellers to bring their home to the market? Will the expected increase in the supply of homes slump home prices or will the inability to receive mortgage loans counteract a flooding of the market? Check out the Homes.com Local Market Index and Rebound reports’ to see what areas are seeing the biggest changes.  Let us know on Facebook what you think will become of the nation’s and your local housing market in the coming months.