CoreLogic, a leading provider of information, analytics and business services, today released its March CoreLogic MarketPulse report. The monthly economic publication provides insight into the current and future health of the U.S. economic climate with particular focus on housing and mortgage metrics. The CoreLogic Mortgage Analytics & Economics team, headed by Chief Economist Mark Fleming, authored the articles and commentary.

The March MarketPulse report:

• Reveals the real estate market is showing positive signs with upward trending sales activity and a healthy month's supply of homes for sale, "which bodes well for future home prices," according to Fleming.
• Reports that the mortgage market is slowly growing on the strength of refinance activity that may fade over the coming year as interest rates rise, but may be replaced by increased home sales and resulting purchase loans.
• Shows an improving housing market that is geographically diverse, ranging from markets that were not as hard hit by the housing market depression to some of those that were hardest hit. Improving home sales are a shared leading indicator of improvement in these markets, as they trigger other sales-related spending which improves the local economy (and stimulates even more home sales). The report provides the top 10 markets ranked by percent change in sales, home prices and delinquencies from a year ago.
• Highlights the importance of uncongested foreclosure pipelines and the ability of a market to clear its distressed properties as critical to long-term improvement in home prices. The report indicates the Northeast is lagging behind other markets in recovery, in part due to congested foreclosure pipelines, and provides the most clogged foreclosure pipeline markets.
• Provides a chart focusing on months' supply for a low, medium and high ranking market from the CoreLogic top 100 Core-Based Statistical Area (CBSA) improvement rankings. The chart shows varying peaks in months' supply and the different recovery rates for three cities, suggesting that the housing crisis had a different impact on each market.