U.S. house prices rose in February, up 1.2 percent from January, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) seasonally adjusted monthly House Price Index (HPI®). House prices rose 7.0 percent from February 2023 to February 2024. The previously reported 0.1 percent price decrease in January remained unchanged.
For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly price changes from January 2024 to February 2024 ranged from +0.4 percentin the West South Central division to +3.0 percent in the New England division. The 12-month changes were all positive, ranging from +3.7 percent in the West South Central division to +10.8 percent in the Middle Atlantic division.
“U.S. house prices rebounded with an increase in February, after declining slightly in January” said Dr. Anju Vajja, Deputy Director for FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics. “All nine census divisions experienced price appreciation over the last 12 months, with New England and Middle Atlantic divisions posting double digit growth.”
The FHFA HPI is a comprehensive collection of publicly available house price indexes that measure changes in single-family home values based on data that extend back to the mid-1970s from all 50 states and over 400 American cities. It incorporates tens of millions of home sales and offers insights about house price changes 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 quarterly and monthly. The flagship FHFA HPI uses seasonally adjusted, purchase-only data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Additional indexes use other data, including refinances, Federal Housing Administration 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 28, 2024, including monthly and quarterly data through March 2024.