October numbers from CoreLogic show that the Middle Tennessee housing market is holding on to the small year-over-year price gains it began posting this summer. Statewide, October home prices were off 0.2 percent, including distressed sales, but up 0.4 percent without them.

In Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, home prices, including distressed sales, increased by 0.2 percent in October 2011 compared to October 2010 and increased by 0.6 percent* in September 2011 compared to September 2010. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices increased by 1.6 percent in October 2011 compared to October 2010 and increased by 0.6 percent* in September 2011 compared to September 2010.

Frank Nothaft, the chief economist at Freddie Mac, last week told a group of local residential real estate agents that the Middle Tennessee housing market is in relatively solid shape. Prices, he said, appear to have troughed and the number of homes for sale isn't as high as in some other regional markets.

For the first time in as long as we can remember, home sales data from CoreLogic shows that Nashville year-over-year home prices rose last month even — wait for it — when distressed sales are included. Local prices fell more than 4.6 percent in 2010 and were off between 1.65 percent and 3.9 percent in the three months prior to July.

In Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, home prices, including distressed sales, increased by 0.4 percent in July 2011 compared to July 2010 and declined by 1.2 percent in June 2011 compared to June 2010. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices increased by 1.5 percent in July 2011 compared to July 2010 and increased by 1.0 percent in June 2011 compared to June 2010.

Were you to judge the current health of housing in the nation's largest cities by how home prices have held up in the past year, you would end up with Music City at the top of your list. The Wall Street Journal has very nicely formatted data from Zillow.com that shows Nashville's homes lost just 2 percent of their value in the year ended June 30. And if you want to click around and compare us to Atlanta and Charlotte, we come out looking pretty good on a lot of fronts. One note of caution: We have hardly whittled down our high inventory of homes, which would help explain why prices haven't slid as much as elsewhere.

CoreLogic is out with its latest housing market data, which is beginning to show a trend both nationally and locally. If you're counting distressed sales, home prices here are still down from a year ago but less than before. And the healthy segment of the market is beginning to show semi-normal gains. Do note the asterisks, though: April's original data has been revised downward by about a point.

In Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, home prices, including distressed sales, declined by 1.65 percent in May 2011 compared to May 2010 and declined by 2.21 percent* in April 2011 compared to April 2010. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices increased by 2.86 percent in May 2011 compared to May 2010 and increased by 1.77 percent* in April 2011 compared to April 2010.

Click here for CoreLogic's national release.

According to a new report by Altos Research that looks at housing trends in mid-sized US markets, cities like Nashville have less volatility in home prices and inventory than their larger counterparts because they "never witnessed a huge bubble or burst during the housing run-up and crash."

Click here for an overview of the Mid-Cities Composite report, which includes data from 20 cities: Albuquerque, Austin, Baltimore, Boise, Boulder, Charleston, Dover, Durham, Jacksonville, Honolulu, Memphis, Naples, Nashville, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Reno, Sacramento, St. Louis, San Antonio, and Ventura County, CA.

National home prices continued to decline in the most recent quarter, falling 2.3 percent, according to Clear Capital's Home Data Index Market Report. Nashville ranked 10th among the worst-performing major markets measured by the index, showing a 5.5 percent quarter-over-quarter drop in home prices.

The Detroit MSA was the worst, with a 13.2 percent decline. The Washington, D.C., area had the best performance, with home prices rising 4.5 percent.

Click here for the full report rankings of the best and worst-performing markets.

“The latest Market Report results through May suggest that home prices are starting to ease back from the heavy declines seen over the winter,” said Dr. Alex Villacorta, director of research and analytics at Clear Capital. “We are still far away from the strong demand needed to fully turn things around for the housing market; however, it is clear from the initial spring sales data that prices are softening, suggesting stabilization in the market.