TRUCKEE, CA-Las Vegas has played some good hands in the home price recovery game, according to a report from Clear Capital, a premium provider of data and solutions for real estate asset valuation and collateral risk assessment. Last week the company released its Home Data Index (HDI) Market Report with data through May 2013. Using a broad array of public and proprietary data sources, the HDI Market Report publishes the most granular home data and analysis earlier than nearly any other index provider in the industry.

May 2013 highlights include:

-- Spring buying activity started to take marginal effect on short-term
price trends as quarterly, national and regional gains saw a slight
uptick over April. The West, South, Northeast and Midwest saw quarterly
gains of 2.4%, 1.1%, 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively.
-- Nationally, home prices saw a 1.3% quarterly gain, while yearly gains
expanded to 8.2%. The yearly growth rate picked up a full 1.0 point over
April's rate of 7.2% growth. As noted in past reports, these noteworthy
gains on the yearly metric can't completely be attributed to current
momentum; rather they are, in part, a result of the low price floor seen
one year ago.
-- Price trends remained mixed at the metro level, a reminder that price
trends at the national and regional levels can tell a very different
story. May's new metro recovery leader, Las Vegas, also highlights the
importance of long-term perspective when analyzing quarterly and yearly
trends in markets that were hard hit during the housing crisis.
-- Las Vegas yearly gains ramped up to 27.0%, surpassing the yearly gains
of 25.7% in Phoenix. This is the first time since April 2012 that
Phoenix has not led the top 50 major metro markets in yearly gains.
While Las Vegas yearly gains continue to pick up steam, the market has a
long road ahead. Current prices remain 57.1% below the peak and would
need to climb another staggering 133.3% to reach peak values. It would
take Las Vegas home prices nearly four years at the current annual
growth rate of 27.0% to get back to 2006 levels. While this is
unrealistic over the short or even mid-term horizon, it puts the current
gains into context.
-- Phoenix on the other hand, has seen a slight moderating pattern over the
last several months, a healthy move for a market that has been very hot
over the last year. This market also has a long road ahead, with prices
still 45.9% below their peak.
-- Further evidence of spring's slightly positive impact: Severity of
quarterly declines in the lowest performing markets subsided slightly in
May, where only six out of 15 of the lowest performing markets saw
declines and five of those saw less than 1.0% in losses.
-- Cleveland was the exception, where quarterly losses of 4.3% fueled
yearly declines of 4.0%. This market's low price point of less than $75
PPSF and high REO saturation rate of 39.1% continue to drive volatile
trends.