Home price indexes tend to be heavily influenced by foreclosure and distressed property sales. Which means the higher the percentage of distressed sales, the more prices will appear to fall. According to CoreLogic’s home price index, however, housing values increased in April by 0.7 percent and, when excluding distressed sales, values were down just 0.5 percent from a year earlier, when the homebuyer tax credit boosted sales. By comparison, prices declined 7.5 percent year-over-year when including distressed sales. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, said the month-over-month increase was the first since government support for home buying was removed and, though it doesn’t yet indicate a long-term trend, it is a positive sign and reason for cautious optimism. More here and here.