This report is available exclusively to subscribers of Inman Intel, a data and research arm of Inman offering deep insights and market intelligence on the business of residential real estate and proptech. Subscribe today.
Redfin on Tuesday announced the launch of the Redfin Home Price Index — a new tool to measure changes in United States home prices.
The tool is described in an announcement from the brokerage as similar to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, with a few key differences.
Among those differences is that the RHPI will use more current data than the Case-Shiller. While Case-Shiller publishes data on a two-month lag, Redfin will be able to publish each month’s data two weeks after that month has ended thanks to its access to real-time home sales data from multiple listing services.
Redfin’s index will also include more metro-level data, with individual indices for the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States every month, according to the announcement.
“The Redfin Home Price Index is a useful tool for current and aspiring homeowners at a time when mortgage rates and other economic forces are fluctuating rapidly,” Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said in a statement. “Prospective sellers can use the RHPI to help determine whether it’s a good time to list a home in their area. And prospective buyers can monitor the index to understand how the market is reacting to mortgage rates and supply constraints.”
Redfin’s index will only include data from houses that have sold at least once before, meaning prices of newly built homes will not be included. It will also exclude home flips. If a seller sells their property within six months of buying it, it is excluded from the data to remove outliers and volatility.
In a snippet of October’s data released along with the announcement, Redfin found home prices rose 0.7 percent month over month, and that monthly price growth was now roughly on par with pre-pandemic levels. On a yearly basis, Redfin found that prices were up 6.1 percent in October, the largest annual increase since the start of 2023.
In Pittsburgh, the index found prices climbed 1.8 percent month over month from September, the largest monthly increase out of the 50 most populous cities, followed by Virginia Beach with a 1.7 percent increase and Boston with a 1.5 percent jump.
