The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its monthly housing price index (HPI), showing house prices rose month-over-month and year-over-year. Prices went up 0.9 percent in February 2021 compared to January, and 12.2 percent from February 2020 to February 2021. The reporting 1 percent price change for January 2021 remained the same.
“Annual house price growth achieved a new record high in February,” Lynn Fisher, FHFA deputy director of the division of research and statistics, said in a release. “The 12.2 percent gain represents an increase of $35,000 for a median-priced home that sold a year ago at $290,000 in the Enterprises’ [Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s] data.”
From January 2021 to February 2021, the seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes in the nine census divisions ranged from a 0.3 percent increase in the Middle Atlantic Division to an increase of 1.6 percent in the Mountain division. The year-over-year seasonally adjusted house price changes ranged from an increase of 10.5 percent in the West North Central Division to a 15.4 percent increase in the Mountain Division.
The next HPI report will be release May 25 and will contain data for the first quarter of 2021 and monthly data through March 2021.