FHFA: Home Prices Slide in November

U.S. house prices showed signs of slowing in November, with a slight increase of 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from the previous month, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) monthly House Price Index (HPI). The November HPI change marks the twenty-second consecutive monthly price increase in the purchase-only, seasonally adjusted index. The previouslyreported 0.5 percent increase in October remained unchanged. The FHFA HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages either sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. From November 2012 to November 2013, house prices were up 7.6 percent. The U.S. index is 8.9 percent below its April 2007 peak and is roughly the same as the April 2005 index level. For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly price changes from October to November ranged from -1.4 percent in the East South Central division to +0.5 percent in the Mountain, West North Central, and East North Central divisions. The 12-month changes ranged from +3.2 percent in the Middle Atlantic division to +15.4 percent in the Pacific division.