House prices rose during October according to the Federal
Housing Finance Agency's monthly House Price Index (HPI.) While the increase was only 0.6 percent on a
seasonally adjusted basis, it followed two months in which prices declined and
was only the 7th upward blip in the last 31 months.
At the same time, the 0.0 percent estimated change in
September was revised downward to a 0.4 percent decline. Since October 2008
prices have fallen 1.9 percent and they are off 10.8 percent since the peak of
the housing market in April 2007.
The HPI is compiled from data collected by Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac data on the houses purchased with mortgages bought or guaranteed by
those government sponsored enterprises.
The index is unique in that it only includes houses where a previous
sale was also financed by a GSI mortgage so price changes are for same house
sales.
There was a wide variation in changes among the nine Census regions. Prices rose in the five of the regions and
were unchanged only in New England. The
Pacific region had an average price increase of 3.7 percent while the Middle
Atlantic States had the worst performance with house prices falling another 1.8
percent. Every region except the West
South Central has lower prices than one year ago - in that region there has
been zero change. Prices in the Mountain
region are down 7.5 percent since last October followed by the South Atlantic
states with a 4.1 percent price decrease.
But everything is relative.
During the one year period prior to this one, October 2007 to October
2008 prices in those in regions were down 8.0 and 9.9 percent
respectively. The Pacific region, showed
the most improvement. Its prices
declined 0.3 percent in the past year compared to a -21.7 percent change in the
2007-2008 period.
The HPI for the U.S. was 199.4. According to the report this was
approximately the level of the HPI in February, 2008.