This annual report describes FHFA's accomplishments, as well as challenges, the agency faced in meeting the strategic goals and objectives during the past fiscal year.
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1.
Operate the business in a safe and sound manner.
2.
Promote sustainable and equitable access to affordable housing.
2023 Scorecard
FHFA experts provide reliable data, including all states, about activity in the U.S. mortgage market through its House Price Index, Refinance Report, Foreclosure Prevention Report, and Performance Report.
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Glossaries
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Washington, D.C. – U.S. house prices rose 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI). This is the tenth consecutive quarterly price increase in the purchase-only, seasonally adjusted index.
“Home price appreciation in the fourth quarter was considerable, but more modest than in recent periods,” said FHFA Principal Economist Andrew Leventis. “It is too early to know whether the lower quarterly growth rate represents the beginning of more normalized price appreciation patterns or a more significant slowdown.”
The HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages sold to, or guaranteed by, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Compared with last year, house prices rose 7.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the fourth quarter of 2013. FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for December was up 0.8 percent from November. FHFA’s expanded-data house price index, a metric that adds transaction information from county recorder offices and the Federal Housing Administration to the HPI data sample, rose 1.2 percent over the prior quarter. Over the last year, that index is up 7.8 percent. For individual states, price changes reflected in the expanded-data measure and the traditional purchase-only HPI are compared on pages 17-19 of this report.
The seasonally adjusted, purchase-only HPI rose 7.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the fourth quarter of 2013 while prices of other goods and services rose only 0.7 percent. The inflation-adjusted price of homes rose approximately 7.0 percent over the latest year.
The seasonally adjusted, purchase-only HPI rose in 38 states during the fourth quarter of 2013 (down from 48 states as reported during the third quarter). The top five states in annual appreciation: 1) Nevada 2) California 3) Arizona 4) Oregon 5) Florida.
Of the nine census divisions, the Mountain division experienced the strongest increase in the fourth quarter, posting a 2.4 percent increase and an 11.7 percent increase since last year. House prices were weakest in the New England division, where prices increased 0.1 percent from the prior quarter.
As measured with purchase-only indexes for the 100 most populated metropolitan areas in the U.S., fourth quarter price increases were greatest in the Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) where prices increased by 7.2 percent. Prices were weakest in the Charleston-North Charleston, SC MSA, where they fell 6.5 percent.
Fifteen of the 20 MSAs with the highest annual appreciation rates were in California.
The monthly seasonally adjusted purchase-only index for the U.S. has increased for 22 of the last 24 months (November 2013 and January 2012 had decreases).
FHFA’s “distress-free” house price indexes, which were published for 12 large metropolitan areas on page 33, have recently reported lower quarterly appreciation than FHFA’s traditional purchase-only indexes. In half of the areas covered, the new series—which removes short sales and sales of bank-owned properties—shows lower quarterly appreciation than the purchase-only series. During the last year, the share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages financing distressed sales has fallen by half or more in three-quarters of the areas covered.
The complete list of state appreciation rates is on pages 14-15. The list of metropolitan area appreciation rates computed in a purchase-only series is on pages 30-32. Appreciation rates for the all-transactions metropolitan area indexes are on pages 36-49.
FHFA’s purchase-only and all-transactions HPI track average house price changes in either repeat sales or refinancings on the same single-family properties. The purchase-only index is based on more than 6 million repeat sales transactions, while the all-transactions index includes more than 50 million repeat transactions. Both indexes are based on data obtained from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for mortgages originated over the past 38 years.
The next monthly index (including data through January 2014) will be released March 25, 2014.
The next quarterly HPI report, which will include data for the first quarter of 2014, will be released May 27, 2014.
Future HPI release dates for 2014 are available on the HPI Release Dates page.
House Price Index Report - Q4 2013
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency regulates Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks. These government-sponsored enterprises provide more than $5.5 trillion in funding for the U.S. mortgage markets and financial institutions.
