U.S. home prices fell for the seventh month in a row during February, although price declines are increasingly concentrated in sales of distressed properties such as bank-owned homes, data aggregator CoreLogic said in releasing its home price index.
The CoreLogic home price index showed U.S. home prices down 6.7 percent from a year ago during February, a sharper decline than the 5.5 percent year-over-year drop registered in January.
Excluding distressed sales, the index was essentially flat, declining by 0.1 percent from a year ago compared to 1.4 percent in January. Distressed sales include short sales and real-estate owned, or "REO," properties.
"When you remove distressed properties from the equation, we’re seeing a significantly reduced pace of depreciation and greater stability in many markets," said CoreLogic Chief Economist Mark Fleming in a statement. "Price declines are increasingly isolated to the distressed segment of the market, mostly in the form of REO sales, as the stock of foreclosures is slowly cleared."
more... http://www.inman.com/news/2011/04/7/greater-stability-in-nondistressed-real-estate-prices
