Prices of homes financed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac increased by 0.2 percent from May to June the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) said today. The year over year change was a positive 5.6 percent. Both June numbers were unchanged from the monthly and yearly increases posted in May but the pace of appreciation has slowed from the year-to-date high of 0.7 percent and 6.1 percent reported for March.
Home prices at the end of the second quarter, were 1.2 percent higher than at the end of the first quarter. FHFA said the 5.6 percent increase from the end of Q2 in 2015 was slightly higher, 5.7 percent, when adjusted for inflation as prices for other goods and services were virtually unchanged over that 12-month period.
"Although the appreciation rate for the second quarter was of similar magnitude to what we've been seeing for several years now, a close look at the month-over-month price changes during the quarter reveals a potentially significant market shift," said FHFA Supervisory Economist Andrew Leventis. "Our monthly price index indicates that in each of the three months of the quarter, the increase was only 0.2 percent. This is a much more modest pace of appreciation than we've seen in some time and most likely reflects accumulated pressures from significantly reduced home affordability," Leventis said.
Four of the nine census regions posted month-over-month price drops, the highest a 0.4 percent loss in the Pacific region. New England and the East South Central regions each declined by 0.2 percent and the Middle Atlantic by 0.1 percent. The largest gains were in the Mountain region, up 0.6 percent for the month and 8.6 percent from a year earlier. All nine divisions were positive for year-over-year price changes.
The only state where prices did not increase between the second quarter of 2015 and the same quarter this year was Vermont. The top five states in annual appreciation were: 1) Oregon 11.7 percent; 2) Washington 10.3 percent; 3) Colorado 10.2 percent; 4) Florida 10.0 percent; and 5) Nevada 9.6 percent.
Among the 100 most populated metropolitan areas in the U.S., annual price increases were greatest in North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida, up by 15.7 percent. Prices were weakest in Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Connecticut, where they fell 3.3 percent.
FHFA's purchase only Home Price Index (HPI) uses sales price information from Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-purchased and Enterprise-guaranteed mortgages originated over the past 41 years. The purchase-only HPI is estimated with over seven million repeat-transactions.
