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Nationwide has just released its latest Leading Index of Healthy Housing Markets (LIHHM) report, which examines the near-term outlook for the housing markets of 400 metropolitan areas across the country. The report analyzes employment, demographics, mortgage market, and house price data for each quarter in order to assign a score assessing the health of each market. Scores range from 75 to 125, with scores above 100 indicating more positive markets and scores below 100 indicating more negative markets. According to the new report, several cities in Arkansas can boast having housing markets among the healthiest in the nation!

Earlier this week, the National Association of REALTORS released their newest housing report, which looked at existing-home sales in the month of May. The findings? May's existing-home sales rose to their highest point in nearly six years, thanks in large part to a substantial increase in first-time home buyers. Here are some of the most important statistics to take away from the report:

New data released by CoreLogic in their latest equity report show more good news for the U.S. housing market. In the last quarter of 2014, 5.4 million homes (10.8% of mortgages) had negative equity. However, in the first quarter of 2015, consistently rising home prices resulted in 254,000 properties regaining positive equity status, bringing the percentage of negative-equity homes down to 10.2%. This increase in wealth represents a hopeful trend for both the housing market and the economy as a whole.

While the trend nation-wide is positive, there is a large amount of variation regarding home equity between states. In fact, just five states together accounted for over 30% of all mortgages with negative equity: