Home prices made an unexpected surge in July the Federal
Housing Finance Agency said today. The month-over-month change was +0.6 percent
while, according to Econoday, analysts
had been looking for an increase of 0.4 percent. It was the largest month-over-month change in
the index since January's 0.7 percent rise.
The increase from May to June had been a mere 0.2 percent.
On an annual basis the HPI was up 5.8 percent and is now 1.1
percent below its March 2007 peak. The
year-over-year change was the largest since April 2014. The index itself stands at 224.5, roughly the
same as in November 2006.
FHFA's HPI is calculated using home sales price information
from mortgages sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The
purchase-only indexes are normalized to 100 in the first quarter of 1991.
Seven
of the nine census divisions posted positive seasonally adjusted monthly price
changes from June 2015 to July 2015.
These ranged from -1.2
percent in the New England division to +1.6 percent in the Mountain division.
The other negative result was in the East North Central division which was down
0.1 percent. The 12-month changes were positive in every region, ranging
from +2.1 percent in the New
England division to +9.4 percent in
the Mountain division.