FHFA US House Price Index Declined Month-Over-Month but Remained Higher Year-Over-Year in August

According to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI®) released today (10-25-22), US home prices declined 0.7% in August from July. However, Year-over-year, house prices rose 11.9%. The previously reported 0.6% price decrease in July 2022 remained unchanged.

According to the HPI, for the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from July to August 2022 ranged from a 2.0% decline in the Mountain division to a 0.4% gain in the New England division. The year-over-year changes were all positive, ranging from 7.4% in the Pacific division to 16.2% in the South Atlantic division.

Adding additional background and his analysis, Will Doerner, Supervisory Economist in FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics, said:

“US house prices declined in August at a similar pace to the previous month. This is the first time since March 2011 that the index has seen two consecutive months of decline. The recent monthly decline solidifies the deceleration of 12-month house price growth that began earlier this year. Higher mortgage rates continued to put pressure on demand, notably weakening house price growth.”