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.
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).