[1]Home asking prices are on the rise nationwide, according to the August 2014 Trulia Price Monitor [2] released on September 9, but they are rising at a faster rate in judicial states where the foreclosure process takes longer.
The latest Trulia [3] report found that home asking prices are increasing faster in hard-hit metros in judicial states such as Florida, Illinois, and New York, where the foreclosure process takes longer because it has to go through the courts, than it is in non-judicial states such as California, Michigan, and Texas, where court action is not required. Trulia reported this is a reversal from the recent trend in which home asking prices have risen more quickly in non-judicial states because the "foreclosure wave" in certain areas came and went faster. Home prices tend to increase at the end of a foreclosure wave because of a tightening of inventory; a slower wave usually means that prices are slower to increase.
For August, asking prices for homes in judicial states increased by 6.9 percent year-over-year, which is close behind the 7.8 jump in non-judicial states. By comparison, there was a much wider gap between the two in August 2013 when asking prices in judicial states rose by just 5.1 percent compared to 14.1 percent in non-judicial states.
Trulia reported an average 1.0 percent increase in home asking prices from July to August and an average 7.8 percent jump from August 2013 to August 2014 for the nation's 100 largest metro areas. Seven of the 10 metro areas with the largest year-over-year asking price increases were located in the South, according to Trulia. Miami and Birmingham were the top two, each with a 15.6 percent increase. The three outliers were Riverside-San Bernardino, California (fifth, 13.8 percent), Chicago (ninth, 12.5 percent) and Oakland (10th, 12.4 percent).
Only four metros out of the top 100 experienced a year-over-year decrease in home asking prices from August 2013 to August 2014: Albany, New York (0.3 percent), El Paso, Texas (0.9 percent), New Haven, Connecticut (0.9 percent), and Little Rock, Arkansas (4.8 percent).