House prices rose nationwide in February, up 0.9 percent from the previous month, according to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI®). House prices rose 12.2 percent from February 2020 to February 2021. The previously reported 1.0 percent price change for January 2021 remained unchanged.
For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from January 2021 to February 2021 ranged from +0.3 percent in the Middle Atlantic division to +1.6 percent in the Mountain division. The 12-month changes ranged from +10.5 percent in the West North Central division to +15.4 percent in the Mountain division.
“Annual house price growth acheived a new record high in February” said Dr. Lynn Fisher, FHFA’s Deputy Director of the Division of Research and Statistics. “The 12.2 percent gain represents an increase of $35,000 for a median-priced home that sold a year ago at $290,000 in the Enterprises’ data.”
The FHFA HPI is the nation’s only collection of public, freely available house price indexes that measure changes in single-family home values based on data from all 50 states and over 400 American cities that extend back to the mid-1970s. The FHFA HPI incorporates tens of millions of home sales and offers insights about house price fluctuations at the national, census division, state, metro area, county, ZIP code, and census tract levels. FHFA uses a fully transparent methodology based upon a weighted, repeat-sales statistical technique to analyze house price transaction data.
FHFA releases HPI data and reports on a quarterly and monthly basis. The flagship FHFA HPI uses seasonally adjusted, purchase-only data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Additional indexes use other data including refinances, FHA mortgages, and real property records. All the indexes, including their historic values, and information about future HPI release dates are available on FHFA’s website: https://www.fhfa.gov/HPI.
FHFA will release its next HPI report on May 25, 2021 with data for the first quarter of 2021 and monthly data through March 2021.
Related Link: FHFA HPI Report April 2021