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Oregon ranked fourth among states across the country for most home depreciation over the past twelve months.

According to data released by CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based research firm, single family home prices in Oregon dropped on average by 9.26 percent from the end of November in 2009 to the end of November 2010. Only Idaho (13.5 percent), Alabama (11.18 percent) and Arizona (10.38 percent) had larger home price depreciations than Oregon.

Conversely, six states and Washington, D.C., have seen home price appreciation over that same time period. Maine (8.58 percent), North Dakota (4.41 percent) and Wyoming (3.67 percent had the largest home price gains.

The presence of distressed assets – bank owned property and short sale inventory – seems to be the driving factor behind Portland’s home price declines. Removing all distressed assets from the data set, CoreLogic found that Oregon home prices have only depreciated by 5.79 percent and fall out of the top five in that category.

Oregon has trailed the national housing market throughout the recession, so the state is now seeing home depreciation caused by distressed properties.