Washington, D.C. – U.S. house prices rose 17.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021 according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI®). House prices were up 3.3 percent compared to the third quarter of 2021. FHFA's seasonally adjusted monthly index for December was up 1.2 percent from November.

"House prices continued to climb but not as rapidly during the final quarter of 2021 as in earlier quarters," said William Doerner, Ph.D., Supervisory Economist in FHFA's Division of Research and Statistics. "Housing trends over the past year have created challenges. The quick house price gains may be counterbalanced as mortgage rates increase. However, more expensive housing has elevated affordability to become a broader concern as available supply remains limited."

Significant Findings

• Housing markets have experienced positive annual appreciation since the start of 2012.
• House prices rose in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between the fourth quarters of 2020 and 2021.  The five areas with the highest annual appreciation were: 1) Arizona 27.4 percent; 2) Utah 27.1 percent; 3) Idaho 27.0 percent; 4) Florida 25.6 percent; and 5) Tennessee 24.1 percent. The areas showing the lowest annual appreciation were: 1) District of Columbia 6.6 percent; 2) Louisiana 10.2 percent; 3) North Dakota 10.3 percent; 4) Maryland 10.8 percent; and 5) Alaska 11.3 percent.
• House prices rose in all of the top 100 largest metropolitan areas over the last four quarters. Annual price increases were greatest in Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL, where prices increased by 34.6 percent. Prices were weakest in Frederick-Gaithersburg-Rockville, MD (MSAD), where they increased by 8.5 percent.
  
• Of the nine census divisions, the Mountain division recorded the strongest four-quarter appreciation, posting a 23.1 percent gain between the fourth quarters of 2020 and 2021 and a 3.5 percent increase in the fourth quarter of 2021. Annual house price appreciation was weakest in the West North Central division, where prices rose by 13.6 percent between the fourth quarters of 2020 and 2021.
• Trends in the Top 100 Metropolitan Statistical Areas are available in our interactive dashboard: https://www.fhfa.gov/DataTools/Tools/Pages/FHFA-HPI-Top-100-Metro-Area-Rankings.aspx. The first tab displays rankings while the second tab offers charts.

The FHFA HPI is the nation's only collection of public, freely available house price indexes that measure changes in single-family home values based on data from all 50 states and over 400 American cities that extend back to the mid-1970s. The FHFA HPI incorporates tens of millions of home sales and offers insights about house price fluctuations at the national, census division, state, metro area, county, ZIP code, and census tract levels. FHFA uses a fully transparent methodology based upon a weighted, repeat-sales statistical technique to analyze house price transaction data.

FHFA releases HPI data and reports on a quarterly and monthly basis. The flagship FHFA HPI uses seasonally adjusted, purchase-only data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Additional indexes use other data including refinances, FHA mortgages, and real property records. All the indexes, including their historic values, and information about future HPI release dates are available on FHFA's website: https://www.fhfa.gov/HPI.

Tables and graphs showing home price statistics for metropolitan areas, states, census divisions, and the U.S. are included on the following pages.

Notes

• The next monthly HPI report (including data through January 2022) will be released March 29, 2022, and the next quarterly HPI report (including data for the first quarter of 2022 and monthly data for March) will be released May 31, 2022.
• Release dates for the remainder of 2022 are posted at https://www.fhfa.gov/DataTools/Downloads/Pages/House-Price-Index.aspx#ReleaseDates.
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