According to August data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) [1] House Price Index released Wednesday, U.S. home prices rose 0.7 percent compared to last month. The 0.2 percent increased previously reported in July was changed upward to 0.4 percent.
Seasonally adjusted monthly price changes from July 2017 to August 2017 for the nine census divisions ranged from -0.1 percent in the New England Division to +1.4 percent in the Pacific division.
The Mountain and West North Central regions both experienced a 0.5 percent increase while the East North Central, East South Central, and Middle Atlantic regions had an increase of 0.6 percent. The South Atlantic’s house prices grew 0.4 percent compared to July 2017.
Over a 12-month period, changes were all positive, ranging from +5.0 percent in the Middle Atlantic divisions to +9.3 percent in the Pacific Division.
The HPI from the FHFA covers single-family housing data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The index is derived from transactions involving conforming conventional mortgages purchased or securitized by the GSEs. The sample is limited by the ceiling amount for conforming loans purchased and mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), VA, or other federal entities are excluded for not being considered “conventional.”
FHFA provides a complete historical and HPI release dates for 2017 and 2018 as well as states included in each region. The monthly index values and appreciation estimates from FHFA are also available in tables and graphs which can be found here [2].
