U.S. house prices rose in the first quarter of 2020, up 1.7 percent according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI). House prices rose 5.7 percent from the first quarter of 2019 to the first quarter of 2020. FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for March was up 0.1 percent from February.
View highlights video featuring Dr. Lynn Fisher at https://youtu.be/KIGimQ7oM_w.
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Trends in the Top 100 Metropolitan Statistical Areas are available through our newly-published interactive dashboard https://www.fhfa.gov/data/dashboard/fhfa-hpi-top-100-metro-area-rankings. The first tab displays rankings while the second tab offers charts.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Impact on House Prices
The data contained within this report is unlikely to reflect the economic impact of COVID-19. Estimated house price movements are based upon closings through March 31st, but, because of the time delay between when a contract is signed and a loan closes, purchase data from March largely reflect prices that were set in late-January and throughout February. In other words, many March purchases reflect prices that were agreed upon before broad stay-at-home orders were issued. Regarding transaction counts, the number of purchase-money repeat transactions in the first quarter of 2020 are comparable to the prior quarter and to the first quarter of 2019. However, March activity might not be representative of typical home sales because of recent market changes like a higher than normal rate of sales cancellations.