Tag Archives: Home Prices

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its monthly House Price Index (HPI) for February, revealing continued growth even as winter weather slowed the market. The broad measure of the movement of single-family home prices in this purchase-only index went up by 0.6 percent, according to FHFA, and with the exception of November 2013, marked nearly two straight years of increases.

Following weak home sales during the first two months of the year resulting from extreme winter weather, March sales picked up 24.6 percent across the 52 metros measured in the RE/MAX National Housing Report. With sales rebounding just in time for spring homebuying season, the market continues to demonstrate its persistent trends of rising prices and low inventory.

Data released last week by the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) shows statewide sales of existing, single-family homes totaling a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 367,000 last month, up 1.4 percent from February but down 12.3 percent from year-ago levels. It was the fifth straight month in which sales came in below 400,000 and the eighth straight annual decline, C.A.R. reported.

The market is much healthier this year, and with the growth in inventory and days on the market for the buyers and with modest price increases present, the overall outlook is good, according to Realtor.com's National Housing Trends report for March. The stats from Realtor.com showed a 9.5 percent growth over March of last year, with 1,841,844 units at a median price of $199,900, which was also 5.3 percent higher. Last year showed an imbalance with a shorter supply and a heavy increase in home prices.

March marked the end of a 17-month streak of double-digit annual price gains—just barely—according to real estate brokerage Redfin. Prices rose 9.9 percent over the year in March, according to Redfin’s data on 19 markets nationwide. Home sales also followed a downward trend in March, but on the bright side, inventory is beginning to grow, according to the brokerage.

According to DataQuick, California home sales were up 28.2 percent in February but down 12.8 percent from March 2013. While many are predicting a recovery in California, last month’s sales were the lowest for a March since 2008, when 24,565 homes sold—a record low for the month of March. Last month's sales were 23.9 percent below the average of 43,251 sales for all months of March since 1988, when DataQuick's statistics begin.

RealtyTrac estimates 9.1 million U.S. homes were seriously underwater in the year's first quarter, representing a slow improvement over the past few years. "U.S. homeowners are continuing to recover equity lost during the Great Recession, but the pace of that recovering equity slowed in the first quarter, corresponding to slowing home price appreciation," said Daren Blomquist, VP at RealtyTrac.

Reports from the Federal Reserve’s 12 districts indicate economic activity has increased in most regions across the country since the end of February as the unusually harsh winter came to an end. According to the most recent update, eight districts—Boston, Philadelphia, Richmond, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco—characterized their economic expansion from March to April as “modest or moderate.”

The latest Survey of Consumer Expectations from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows home price change expectations have declined slightly, falling to a projected 3.8 percent for the year ahead—the lowest level seen since October last year. The Fed found that the pattern did not hold in the West, where home prices are expected to continue at an even stronger pace.

FNC, Inc.’s Residential Price Index (RPI) once again picked up its clip in February, rising at the highest annual rate in nearly eight years, the company reported. The national index, created to gauge price movement among “normal” home sales (exclusive of distressed properties), climbed 9.1 percent year-over-year in February, bringing it back to levels last seen at the peak of the housing market in June 2006 as non-distressed sales gain market share.