FHFA House Price Index (HPI) Inched Up 0.2% for September, 6.3% Annually

Washington, D.C. – Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI) finds U.S. house prices rose 1.3% in the third quarter (Q3) of 2018. House prices are up 6.3% from Q3 2017 to Q3 2018.

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The FHFA HPI — sourced by home sales price information from mortgages sold to, or guaranteed by, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — rose a seasonally-adjusted 0.2% in the monthly index for September from August.

“Home prices continued to rise in the third quarter but their upward pace is slowing somewhat,” said Dr. William Doerner, Supervisory Economist. “Rising mortgage rates have cooled down housing markets—several regions and over two-thirds of states are showing slower annual gains.”

The following content below the video reflects the FHFA press release.

Significant Findings

• Home prices rose in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between the third quarter of 2017 and the third quarter of 2018.  The top five areas in annual appreciation were: 1) Idaho 15.1 percent; 2) Nevada 15.0 percent; 3) Washington 10.6 percent; 4) Utah 10.0 percent; and 5) Colorado 9.2 percent.  The areas showing the smallest annual appreciation were:  1) Alaska 0.2 percent; 2) North Dakota 1.0 percent; 3) Louisiana 1.5 percent; 4) District of Columbia 1.6 percent; and 5) Connecticut 2.2 percent.
• Home prices rose in 99 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. over the last four quarters.  Annual price increases were greatest in Boise City, ID, where prices increased by 20.1 percent.  Prices were weakest in Honolulu (“Urban Honolulu”), HI, where they fell by 5.2 percent.
• Of the nine census divisions, the Mountain division experienced the strongest four-quarter appreciation, posting an 8.9 percent gain between the third quarters of 2017 and 2018 and a 1.5 percent increase in the third quarter of 2018.  Annual house price appreciation was similarly weak in the New England, Middle Atlantic, and West South Central divisions, where prices rose less than 5.0 percent between the third quarters of 2017 and 2018.

Background

FHFA’s HPI tracks changes in home values for individual properties owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac over the past 43 years using more than eight million repeat transactions.  The “repeat-transactions” methodology constructs index estimates by statistically evaluating price appreciation (or depreciation) for homes with multiple values over time.