House prices rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% for August, according to a Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) report (link opens as PDF) released today . These latest numbers mark the 19th straight month of home price increases, and follow on the heels a strong 1% gain for July. Analysts, however, had been hoping for a larger 0.8% bump.
The FHFA House Price Index is calculated using single-family home sales price information from mortgages sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and, at current levels, is comparable to readings from April 2005.
Source: fhfa.gov
For the nine Census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly price changes from July to August ranged from 1.3% gains in the Mountain region (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico) to -0.5% losses in the South Atlantic (Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida).
In the last 12 months, overall house prices are up 8.5%, pushed ahead by 18.2% gains in the Pacific Region (Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California).
