OFHEO: New U.S. monthly housing price index estimates 0.6 percent increase between Januaury and FebruauryMortgagePress.comOFHEO, statistics, House Price Index, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
U.S. home prices rose approximately 0.6 percent on a
seasonally-adjusted basis between January and February, according
to OFHEO's new monthly House Price Index. For the 12 months ending
in February, U.S. prices fell 2.4 percent. Since its peak in April
2007, the index is down 3.1 percent.
The OFHEO monthly index is calculated using purchase prices of
houses backing mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed by
Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The index, introduced in OFHEOs fourth
quarter 2007 House Price Index (HPI) report, provides a timely
indicator of house price conditions for the nation and each of the
nine Census Divisions. For the nine Census Divisions,
seasonally-adjusted monthly price changes from January to February
ranged from -0.6 percent in the Mountain Census Division to 2.2
percent in the New England Division.
Changes in the national index, which is constructed as a
weighted average of data from the nine Census Divisions, reflect
movements in market prices as well as changes in the mix of
geographic areas within Census Divisions. Normally changes in the
mix are relatively small. However, in February, the share of
reported sales volumes rose in states with stronger housing
markets, which significantly increased estimated appreciation above
what it would have been in the absence of such effects. Holding the
weights for each state constant, the national increase would have
been only 0.3 percent in February.
Monthly index values and appreciation rate estimates are
provided in the table and graph on the following pages. All
estimates are seasonally adjusted and, as with OFHEOs quarterly
HPI, will be revised in later releases.
For detailed information concerning the new monthly HPI, please
see the HPI
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). The next release of monthly
index data will be included as part of OFHEO's next quarterly HPI,
released May 22, 2008. That release will include quarterly index
data through the first quarter of 2008 and will report monthly
estimates through March. Please e-mail
[email protected]
for a printed copy of this report.
For more information, visit www.ofheo.gov.
