May 28, 2019

FHA: U.S. House Prices Rise 1.1 Percent in First Quarter 2019

U.S. house prices rose 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2019 according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI).  House prices rose 5.1 percent from the first quarter of 2018 to the first quarter of 2019.  FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for March was up 0.1 percent from February.

The HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages sold to, or guaranteed by, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  

“House prices have risen consistently over the last 31 quarters,” said Dr. William Doerner, Supervisory Economist. “Although price growth is still positive, the upward pace is softening across the country, especially among states with the largest supplies of housing.” 

See  video of highlights for the first quarter featuring Dr. Doerner. 

Significant Findings

Tables and graphs showing home price statistics for metropolitan areas, states, census divisions, and the U.S. as a whole are included on the following pages

Other Price Indexes
Most statistics in the quarterly HPI report reference price changes computed by FHFA’s “purchase-only” HPI.  In some cases, however, the reported statistics reference alternative price measures.  FHFA publishes—and makes available for download—three additional HPIs beyond the “purchase-only” series.  Although they use the same general methodology, the three alternatives rely on slightly different datasets as follows: 

Data constraints preclude the production of all types of indexes for every geographic area, but multiple index types are generally available.  For individual states, for instance, three types of indexes are available.  The various indexes tend to correlate closely over the long-term, but short-term differences can be significant.  

Background

FHFA’s HPI tracks changes in home values for individual properties owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac over the past 44 years using more than nine million repeat transactions.  The “repeat-transactions” methodology constructs index estimates by statistically evaluating price appreciation (or depreciation) for homes with multiple values over time.  See this video explaining the basic methodology behind the FHFA HPI.

Note 

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This post was originally published here.