Up, up and away. Utah home prices keep climbing.

At 17.55 percent, Utah led the nation in house-price appreciation in last year's fourth quarter compared to the same quarter of 2005, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

Wyoming was No. 2 at 14.3 percent and Idaho was third at 14 percent. Washington gained 13.7 percent, and Oregon was fifth at 13.5 percent.

"As long as we have job growth here, nothing will slow us down," Gary Cannon, the co-owner of Re/Max Associates in Salt Lake City and president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, said in an interview.

Utah's unemployment rate was 2.7 percent in January, below the national rate of 4.6 percent, according to the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

Some Utah cities posted even stronger house-price gains.

The Provo-Orem area showed a 19.92 percent appreciation rate in the fourth quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2005. Salt Lake City home prices rose 19.76 percent in the same period.

The Provo-Orem and Salt Lake metropolitan areas ranked Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, for highest appreciation among 282 U.S. cities.

"I think that the last two years have been very strong in our market after having three relatively flat years," said Debra Sjoblom, former president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors. "I think we are still in a very stable situation. I think it's certainly a great appreciation, but not so great that we're running any risk of having it tumble."

Nationally, home prices rose 5.87 percent in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2005. But several U.S. cities showed a retreat.

Santa Barbara, Calif., was down 4.20 percent in the fourth quarter compared to a year earlier. And the Reno-Sparks, Nev., area showed a nearly 1 percent drop in home prices for the same period.

"These data show that, on the whole, prices are still rising, albeit at a much slower pace," said James Lockhart, OFHEO director, in a prepared statement. "This suggests that house-price appreciation is, for now, more in line with historical norms."

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Contributing: Bloomberg News

E-mail: danderton@desnews.com