The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) reports a quarterly House Price Index (HPI) which analyzes house price appreciation trends. This information comes from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, responsible for nearly 29 million transactions each year.
Following the end of the third quarter of 2003 to the third quarter of 2004, annual average percentages of increase in home price rose nearly 13%, and nearly 4% for the last quarter alone. Comparatively speaking, non-housing goods only rose close to three percent in the last year. This boom in housing sales can be strongly attributed to the low interest rates that have allowed buyers to obtain less capital for the purchase of a house, and further require less refinancing.
The OFHEO report shows percentage change in Housing Price Index for each individual state, including statistics on those states with extremely high and low rates. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) are also rated in the report according to 2000 Census data. For example, Nevada’s house prices grew nearly 36% in a year’s time, rated as the largest HPI increase for any state. Hawaii, California, and Washington D.C. are close behind. The report includes:
1) House Price Appreciation ranking for all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia
2) House Price Appreciation percentage changes, as filed by the Census
3) House Price Appreciation for 245 Metropolitan Statistical Areas
4) House Price Appreciation statistics for 1- and 5-year rates of MSAs not ranked
To view a copy of this data, simply click the following link for the OFHEO’s official report: http://www.ofheo.gov/media/pdf/3q04hpi.pdf
The next report will be posted on March 1, 2005. For a hard copy of the report, email ofheoinquiries@ofheo.gov
