U.S. house prices rose in August, up 0.2 percent from the previous month, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI). House prices rose 4.6 percent from August 2018 to August 2019. The previously reported 0.4 percent increase for July 2019 remains unchanged.
For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from July 2019 to August 2019 ranged from –0.8 percentin the East South Central division to +0.9 percent in the New England division. The 12-month changes were all positive, ranging from +3.9 percent in the Middle Atlantic and Pacific divisions to +6.5 percent in the Mountain division.
FHFA produces the nation’s only public, freely available house price indexes (HPIs) that measure changes in single-family house prices based on data that cover all 50 states and over 400 American cities and extend back to the mid-1970s. FHFA HPIs are built on tens of millions of home sales and offer insights about home price fluctuations at the levels of the nation, census division, state, metro area, county, ZIP code, and census tract. The FHFA HPIs use a fully transparent methodology based upon a weighted, repeat-sales statistical technique to analyze transaction data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. FHFA releases data and reports quarterly and monthly. The flagship FHFA HPI uses seasonally adjusted, purchase-only data, unless otherwise noted. Additional indexes are based on other data including refinances, FHA mortgages, and real property records. All these data can be downloaded from the FHFA website.
Monthly index values and appreciation rate estimates for recent periods are provided in the tables and graphs on the following pages. Downloadable data and HPI release dates for 2020 and the remainder of 2019 are available at https://www.fhfa.gov/HPI.
For more detailed information, see FHFA HPI Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). The next FHFA HPI report will be released November 26, 2019 and will include data for the third quarter of 2019 and monthly data through September 2019.