Prices of homes that were either sold or guaranteed by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae increased for the 15th consecutive month according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) monthly House Price Index (HPI).
April’s home prices increased by 0.7 percent from the previous month and were 7.4 percent higher than they were the previous year but were still 11.7 percent below their peak in April 2007. Home prices are at roughly the same levels last seen in January of 2005.
FHFA gathers its data by calculating purchase prices of houses backed by mortgages sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The data is then broken down into nine geographic Census Divisions.
Six of the nine Census Divisions posted monthly price gains in April with the Mountain Division reporting the most improvement, increasing 2.2 percent, closely followed by the Pacific Division with a 2.1 percent gain while the East South Central Division posted a 1.2 percent improvement.
The West South Central, New England and South Atlantic Divisions all posted identical declines of 0.2 percent.
All nine of the Divisions registered year-over-year price gains with the Pacific Division posting the largest yearly increase of 17.1 percent followed by the Mountain Division with a 14.8 percent annual gain. The Middle Atlantic Division posted the smallest annual gain of 2.9 percent.
Census Divisions:
Pacific: Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California
Mountain: Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico
West North Central: North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri
West South Central: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana
East North Central: Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio
East South Central: Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama
New England: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut
Middle Atlantic: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania
South Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida
Tags: FHFA, home prices, HPI, census divisions, price gains, price declines
Source:
FHFA
Reported by Shirley Allen