U.S. home prices continued to grow for the eighth straight month in July, though gains slowed to a crawl.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency's [1] (FHFA) monthly House Price Index [2] picked up 0.1 percent from June to July, coming down after a revised 0.3 percent increase in June. Calculated using price data on mortgages sold to or guaranteed by the GSEs, the index provides a look at how homes are performing exclusive of high-end, non-agency loans.
For the 12 months ending in July, FHFA reported house prices were up 4.4 percent. As of the latest index, the national HPI is now 6.4 percent below its peak in April 2007 and is roughly in line with its July 2005 level.
Month-to-month price increases were led by the East North Central census division, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, which saw growth of 0.4 percent. At the bottom end was the Middle Atlantic—New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania—where prices depreciated 0.5 percent over the month.