Excluding distressed sales, the increase was 2.6%.

Those are healthy gains even after the reminder that these numbers are not adjusted for seasonality and that home prices month-to-month are generally more robust through the late spring and summer, and much less robust in the fall and winter.

More importantly, in year-over-year comparisons, CoreLogic saw an increase of 1.1% in home prices in April 2012 compared to April 2011. That includes distressed sales.

And that’s just another indication that we have finally hit bottom in terms of home prices nationally.

But some states and cities are obviously in better shape than in others.

From the press release:

Including distressed sales, the five states with the greatest depreciation were: Delaware (-11.9 percent), Illinois (-6.8 percent), Alabama (-6.6 percent), Rhode Island (-6.2 percent), and Georgia (-5.6 percent).

Here’s CoreLogic’s map showing the widespread positive turn year-over-year:

And here’s the year-over-year change in percentage terms — the brief positive turn in the CoreLogic HPI two years ago was because of the homebuyer tax credits.

Some analysts have been predicting the bottom for house prices for years now, but it really might be here, finally.

From today’s release:

Excluding distressed sales, month-over-month prices increased 0.7 percent in February from January. The CoreLogic HPI® also showed that year-over-year prices declined by 0.8 percent in February 2012 compared to February 2011. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

The report also shows national home prices, including distressed sales, declined on a year-over-year basis by 2.0 percent in February 2012 and by 0.8 percent compared to January 2012, the seventh consecutive monthly decline.

Obviously, there’s a lot of variability across the country, but this is generally good news. We may not be at the bottom for home prices, but many signs suggest that we are close to it — or perhaps right at it now.

Including distressed sales, single family home prices in Georgia are down 6.6% in the last 12 months (as of Feb.); excluding distressed sales, Georgia prices are down 3% year-over-year.

Here’s how the largest metros compare:

Here’s a graph showing the continued but slowing declines (the homebuyer tax credits were the reason for the brief stint in positive territory in 2010):

And here’s a map showing how the states stack up, including distressed sales, in terms of home price changes from Feb. 2011 to Feb. 2012:

Click for a larger image