For the 15th consecutive month, a home price index based off of purchase mortgage transactions sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revealed an increase in home values.
According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index, U.S. house price appreciation through April rose 0.7% on a seasonally-adjusted basis
Even though the FHFA HPI is up 7.4% in April compared to a year ago, the index is still 11.7% below its April 2007 peak.
Based from the nine divisions the FHFA tracks home prices nationwide, three experienced month-over-month declines of 0.2%, South Atlantic (Delaware, Maryland, District of Colombia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida), New England (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut), and West South Central (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana).
In April, the Mountain region—Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico—posted the highest home price appreciation of 2.2% from the prior month.
On a yearly basis, the 12-month increases in home values ranged from 2.9% in the Middle Atlantic (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania) to 17.1% in the Pacific (Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California).
