House prices rose nationwide in January, up 1.0 percent from the previous month, according to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI®). House prices rose 12.0 percent from January 2020 to January 2021. The previously reported 1.1 percent price change for December 2020 was revised upward to 1.2 percent.
For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from December 2020 to January 2021 ranged from –0.2 percent in the East South Central division to +1.5 percent in the Mountain division. The 12-month changes ranged from +10.2 percentin the West South Central division to +14.8 percent in the Mountain division.
“While house prices experienced historic growth rates in 2020 and into the new year, the monthly gains appear to be moderating” said Dr. Lynn Fisher, FHFA’s Deputy Director of the Division of Research and Statistics. “House prices increased by 1.0 percent in January, which is relatively still high, but represents the smallest month-over-month gain since June 2020.”
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 April 27, 2021 with monthly data through February 2021.