November 26, 2019

FHFA: House Prices Rise 1.1 Percent in Third Quarter 2019; Up 4.9 Percent from Last Year

U.S. house prices rose in the third quarter of 2019, up 1.1 percent according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI).  House prices rose 4.9 percent from the third quarter of 2018 to the third quarter of 2019.  FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for September was up 0.6 percent from August.

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.  The HPIs are built from tens of millions of home sales and offer insights about house price fluctuations at the national, census division, state, metro area, county, ZIP code, and census tract levels.  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 on a quarterly and monthly basis.  The 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 the indexes can be downloaded from the FHFA website. 

“House prices have risen every quarter for the last eight years,” said Dr. William Doerner, FHFA Supervisory Economist.  “Relative to a year ago, market indices are still trending upward for the nation as a whole as well as in every census division, state, and the top 100 metro areas. Price gains, though, are continuing to slow their upward pace in a few cities with large housing markets.” 

Significant Findings

Tables and graphs showing home price statistics for metropolitan areas, states, census divisions, and the U.S. 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. 

Note 

This post was originally published here.