The Latest on the FHFA Monthly House Price Index

In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s second update discusses the latest numbers from the FHFA house price index.

• FHFA released monthly and quarterly home price data today covering prices through the second quarter and June.  The purchase-only data, based solely on repeat prices from purchase transactions, showed a 2.1 percent rise in the second quarter from the first quarter, the eighth consecutive quarter of increasing prices.
• Monthly data showed that prices were up 0.7 percent from May to June, the 17th month of consecutive increase, and up 7.7 percent from June 2012 to June 2013.  By comparison, NAR reported that the price of the median home sold increased 13.4 percent from June 2012 to June 2013 and showed that the gains continued in July.  FHFA data from July will be available next month.
• In the quarterly release, FHFA has more localized data.  This month’s release showed that from a year ago, price gain was the fasted in Nevada, California, Arizona, Oregon, and the District of Columbia.  Four other states had double digit gains in home prices from one year ago.  All states showed gains.  Those states with the smallest price gains were Kentucky, New Jersey, Alaska, New York, and New Mexico.
• FHFA also publishes metro area data.  For the year, Las Vegas and Stockton-Lodi, CA each had price gains of 26.6 percent as measured by the purchase-only index available for the 100 most populated MSAs.   Only two of the 100 most populated MSAs saw slight declines in prices from one-year ago; Syracuse, NY and Columbia, SC each saw declines of less than 1 percent.
• For the year ending in June, the top twenty metro areas by home price appreciation out of the 401 covered as measured by purchases and refinance data were in 7 states: California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, North Dakota, Florida, and Idaho.  Stockton-Lodi, CA topped the list with a 19.4 percent gain in home prices from one year ago.  Phoenix and Las Vegas rounded out the top three. While there were no price declines at the state level, some metro areas did see slight declines.  The metro areas with the biggest decline in home prices in the last year was Norwich-New London, CT where prices slipped 3.36 percent.  Gulfport, MS and Rockford, IL rounded out the bottom 3.