FHFA Home Price Index Up 0.5% in August

Home price growth accelerated in August following a slightly better than reported July, according to a new release from one of the nation's housing regulators.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported Thursday that U.S. house prices rose a seasonally adjusted 0.5 percent month-over-month in August. The increase follows a revised 0.2 percent improvement in July (up from an original estimate of 0.1 percent).

On a year-over-year basis, FHFA's price index was up 4.8 percent, putting it roughly in line with its August 2005 level and 5.8 percent below its peak in April 2007.

Across the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted month price changes ranged from declines of 0.6 percent in the New England and South Atlantic divisions (the only two divisions to see prices fall) to growth of 1.2 percent in the Mountain division.

Year-over-year, the Pacific division continued to lead all others with an appreciation rate of 7.8 percent. At the bottom was the Middle Atlantic, where prices in August were up only 1.9 percent from the year before.

As a measure of home prices based on mortgages sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, FHFA's index gauges price changes exclusive of high-cost, non-conforming mortgages. As with most other measures, the index has seen a gradual slowdown in the last year as the housing market steps back from the kind of gains observed in 2012 and 2013.