Housing Markets Continue to Improve: Freddie Mac

Freddie Mac's monthly Multi-Indicator Market Index showed almost 80% of the top 100 housing markets in the country continued to improve in March from February, the government-sponsored enterprise said Wednesday.

According to the index, 17 states as well as the District of Columbia had market values in a "stable" range, with North Dakota, D.C., Hawaii, Montana and Wyoming making up the top five most stable markets.

According to Freddie Mac, a total of 36 states and 77 of 100 metro area markets improved on a three-month trend in the most recent MiMi. Washington (2.37% improvement), Oregon (2.26%), Arizona (1.76%), Tennessee (1.39%) and Michigan (1.26%) were the states whose home values were most improved on a year-over-over basis. Stockton, Calif. (12.01%), Detroit (11.63%), Denver (11.41%), Las Vegas (10.73%) and Palm Bay, Fla. (10.23%), were the metro areas with the most improvement.

"The nation's housing markets are getting back on track. Better employment prospects, rising home values and increased purchase activity are all driving improvements in housing markets across the country," Freddie Mac deputy chief economist Len Kiefer said in a statement accompanying the index results.

"However, as we've mentioned before, we're likely to see bouts of affordability shock with mortgage rate swings for the remainder of this year as market participants try to anticipate Fed timing around rising short-term interest rates and expectations for global growth wax and wane."