INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — While home prices ticked up nationally, here in Indian River County prices dropped by 3.17 percent in March, according to figures released Monday by CoreLogic, which tracks housing trends.The county figures are slightly better than for all of Florida where home prices dropped 3.5 percent. Nationally, the CoreLogic Home Price Index, showed an increase of 2.6 percent of home prices in April from a year ago, which is on the heels of a 2.3 percent increase in March. “The monthly increase in the HPI shows the lingering effects of the homebuyer tax credit,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “We expect that we will see home prices remain strong through early summer, but in the second half of the year we expect price growth to soften and possibly decline moderately.”Locally, home prices appear to be moderating as the 3.17 March decrease was better than 5.68 percent drop in prices from February 2009 compared to February 2010. Excluding distressed transactions (homes in foreclosure, short sales, etc.), year-over-year HPI for March is -1.73 percent, compared to February which was -3.70 percent.
