If the price of your home took a beating when the housing bubble burst, or if you bought a home in recent years and have been waiting for prices to trend upward, the data on one new report should be good news.

The folks at CoreLogic have just completed crunching the numbers for November 2012 home prices in the U.S. and found that nationwide, there was a year-over-year increase in home values of 7.4%.

The last time there was a year-over-year change that substantial was May 2006, a time when some of us were still riding high in luxury homes bought with subprime adjustable rate mortgages from Countrywide.

According to CoreLogic, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were: Arizona (20.9%), Nevada (14.2%), Idaho (13.8%), North Dakota (11.3%), and California (11.1%).

Of course, not all states can brag about increased home prices. Six states saw decreasing home prices: Delaware (-4.9%), Illinois (-2.2%), Connecticut (-0.5%), New Jersey (-0.5%), Rhode Island (-0.3%), and Pennsylvania (-0.1%).

However, when you take the prices for distressed homes out the equation, only Delaware and Alabama saw year-over-year drops in home prices (-3.5% and -2.2%, respectively).

CoreLogic predicts that the December home prices will show year-over-year growth of 7.9%, though they might dip a teensy bit (0.5%) from the Nov. 2012 level because of the seasonal winter slowdown.

“As we close out 2012 the pending index suggests prices will remain strong,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Given that the recently released Qualified Mortgage rules issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are not expected to significantly restrict credit availability relative to today, the gains made in 2012 will likely be sustained into 2013.”

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