NEW YORK – Home prices jumped during the first quarter at their fastest pace since 2006, a strong sign that the economy is strengthening, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The housing revival fueled debate inside the Federal Reserve about how aggressive it should get with its monetary policies, including its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program.

"The data we're seeing tells the Fed we're moving in the right direction, but I don't know if it's enough to really have the Fed scale back what they're doing," said Scott Buchta, head of fixed-income strategy at Brean Capital LLC. 

Home prices in March rose 10.2% from a year earlier, the largest annual gain since home prices began falling in 2006. For the first quarter, prices jumped 1.2%. 

During the NACS State of the Industry Summit in April, David Nelson, professor of economics at Western Washington University and president of Study Groups, told attendees that with home building up in many markets, and the National Association of Home Builders estimating that three jobs are created for every home that’s built, the dynamic bodes well for convenience stores. “My Study Group members tell me that these are great convenience store customers, people working in the construction trade,” Nelson said.