Lender Processing Services Says Values Rose 1% in February

Lender Processing Services’ February Home Price Index increased 1% over January but over 7% when compared with February 2012.

The month-to-month gain from December to January was just 0.3%.

Raj Dosaj, vice president of behavioral models and HPI for LPS Applied Analytics, explained, "February's national HPI gains were a further sign of an overall continuing recovery in the housing market. All five of the nation's largest states showed positive growth for the month, led by California, which was up 2.2%. Add to that the fact that only one state, Connecticut, saw values decrease, and together, this all helped to positively impact the national average."

Connecticut was down 0.3%, and five cities in the state are at the bottom of the list in terms of price growth. The other states in the bottom in terms of price growth were Vermont and Rhode Island, both up 0.2%, and Oklahoma at 0.3% growth.

California and Washington both had 2.2% growth, followed by Nevada at 1.8%. Nine of the 10 markets with the largest percentage growth in February were in California (the other is Seattle).

But the HPI is still down some 21% since it hit its peak in June 2006.