An index tracking sales of homes purchased with loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac showed home prices rising for the third consecutive month from June to July, by a seasonally adjusted 0.3 percent, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said.
The FHFA’s monthly index — which can understate price swings in either direction because it excludes loans too big or too risky for Fannie and Freddie — showed U.S. home prices down 4.2 percent from a year ago and 10.5 percent from an April 2007 peak.
FHFA revised downward, to 0.1 percent, a previous estimate that U.S. home prices rose by 0.5 percent from May to June.
The index showed prices rising in five of nine Census divisions from June to July: the Pacific (1.6 percent), Middle Atlantic (1 percent), South Atlantic (0.6 percent), Mountain (0.3 percent), and West North Central (0.3 percent).
Prices were down in the East South Central (-0.9 percent), East North Central (-0.3 percent), West South Central (-0.2 percent) and New England (-0.1 percent) divisions.
Looking back a year, home prices were down the most in the Mountain division (-9.8 percent), followed by the Pacific (-9 percent), South Atlantic (-5.6 percent), East North Central (-3.3 percent), Middle Atlantic (-2.9 percent), New England (-2.5 percent), East South Central (-1.7 percent), and West North Central (-1.5 percent) divisions.
Prices were essentially unchanged in the West South Central division, rising by 0.1 percent from a year ago.
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