Federal Housing

 

U.S. House Prices Rose 1.1 Percent in Third Quarter 2012 

Washington, DC – U.S. house prices rose 1.1 percent from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2012 according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) seasonally adjusted 

purchase-only house price index (HPI).  The HPI is calculated using home sales price information from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages.  Seasonally adjusted house prices rose  4.0 percent from the third quarter of 2011 to  the third quarter of 2012.  FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for September was up 0.2 percent from August. “With significant growth in home prices during the quarter and a modest inventory of homes available for sale, house price movements in the third quarter were similar to what we observed in the spring,” said FHFA Principal Economist  Andrew Leventis.  “The past year has seen consistent price increases, but a number of factors continue to affect the recovery in home 

prices such as stagnant income growth, high unemployment levels, lingering uncertainty about the macro-economy, and the large number of homes in the foreclosure pipeline.” 

  

FHFA’s  expanded-data house price index, a metric introduced  in  August  2011  that  adds transactions information from county recorder offices and the Federal Housing Administration to the HPI data sample, rose 1.0 percent over the latest quarter.  Over the latest four quarters, the index is up 3.3 percent.  For individual states, price changes reflected in the expanded-data measure and the traditional purchase-only HPI are compared on pages 21-23 of this report. While the national, purchase-only house price index rose 4.0 percent from the third quarter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2012, prices of other goods and services rose 1.5 percent over the 

same period.  Accordingly, the inflation-adjusted price of homes rose approximately 2.5 percent over the latest year. 

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