Home Prices Are Rising In Every State - But One

Every state in the United States continued their steady hike in rising home prices. Except for one, Alaska.Have you been hoping the climbing prices we've seen over the last several months has to mean they will stop soon? Us too. And we hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no end in sight.  Homes are predicted to continue jumping up another 5.2% over the next year.  Nationally, monthly prices rose 1.1% and were up by 6.7% since last June. Home prices are rising in every state - but one. In Alaska, prices actually dropped .6% from last June.Why Alaska, you might ask? Keep reading to find out why home prices are rising in every state but one, and click this link to read the entire article.

So, why Alaska? "The fact that the oil markets have been a little bit slow probably has as many people looking to leave the state as coming in," says Chief Economist Danielle Hale of realtor.com®. Even with the decline, it's unlikely hordes of wannabe homeowners will be heading for the freezing "Last Frontier" state any time soon.The rest of the price hikes can be explained by the sheer lack of homes on the market. June had the lowest number of properties for sale in the second quarter of a year in more than 30 years. That's driven prices up to almost 50% more than what they were at the nadir of the housing market, in March 2011, during the depths of the financial crisis."The growth in sales is slowing down, and this is not due to lack of affordability, but rather a lack of inventory," said CoreLogic's Chief Economist Frank Nothaft in a statement.And that dearth of homes for sale might be leading to overvaluing in four metro areas. Here, prices are at least 10% more than long-term, sustainable levels, according to the CoreLogic report. Annual prices are up 8.7% in Denver; 3.4% in Houston; 4.4% in Miami; and 4.9% in Washington, DC.Buyers "won’t have many options, and the options [they] find are likely to be competitive with other buyers" driving the costs up even further, says Hale.State by state, annual prices surged the most in Washington, home to Seattle, by 12.7%. It was followed by Utah, at 10.7%; Colorado, at 9.2%; Idaho, at 9.1%; and Oregon, at 9%.Seattle, Denver, and Portland, OR, have been hot markets with buyers submitting offers over asking price and engaging in bidding wars for some time now.But recently metros such as Salt Lake City and Boise, ID, have been joining their ranks. Year-over-year metro home prices went up a whopping 8.8% in Salt Lake City and 11% in Boise in June, according to realtor.com data.