House prices rose nationwide in May, up 1.4 percent from the previous month, according to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI®). House prices rose 18.3 percent from May 2021 to May 2022. The previously reported 1.6 percent price change for April 2022 was revised downward to 1.5 percent..
For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from April 2022 to May 2022 ranged from +0.2 percent in the Pacific division to +2.0 percent in the New England division. The 12-month changes were all positive, ranging from +13.9 percent in the Middle Atlantic division to +23.8 percent in the South Atlantic division.
“House prices continued to rise in May, but at a slower pace” said Will Doerner, Ph.D., Supervisory Economist in FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics. “Since peaking in February, price appreciation has moderated slightly. Price growth continues to remain above historical levels, supported by the low inventory of properties for sale.”
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 nominal, 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 August 30, 2022, including data through the second quarter of 2022 and monthly data through June.