Following a trend maintained over the past nine quarters, the ""Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA's) Home Price Index (HPI)"":http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/25844/3Q2013HPIreleasepacket.pdf posted an increase over the third quarter. The index, which incorporates sales data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, rose 2 percent over the third quarter and 8.4 percent over the year.
[IMAGE]Also notable, the third quarter is the first time since 2009 that national home prices are higher than they were five years earlier, according to FHFA.
""Overall, the housing market experienced another strong quarter, but price appreciation in the latter part of the quarter was relatively subdued,"" said Andrew Leventis, principal economist at FHFA.
FHFA's calculations are somewhat lower than those calculated by ""Case Shiller."":https://themreport.com/articles/home-prices-continue-to-improve-in-september-monthly-gains-slow-crawl-2013-11-26 Released Tuesday--the same day as the FHFA HPI--Case Shiller reported a 3.2 percent quarterly increase and an 11.2 percent annual increase for the third quarter.
[COLUMN_BREAK]FHFA also measured prices on a seasonally-adjusted basis over the month, detecting a 0.3 percent increase over the month of September.
While the yearly price increase stands at 8.4 percent, when accounting for inflation, prices rose about 7.2 percent over the year, according to FHFA.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia experienced rising prices over the year in September, according to FHFA.
Nevada posted the steepest price increase over the year in September, according to FHFA--a 25 percent rise.
California (23 percent), Arizona (15 percent), Florida (12 percent), and Washington (12 percent) followed.
At the other end of the spectrum, Mississippi posted the smallest increase at 1 percent.
Wyoming, New Mexico, Connecticut, and Delaware all followed with price gains hovering just above 2 percent.
Of the nine Census divisions, prices rose most over the year in the Pacific division--19.2 percent.
No price decreases were reported over the year, but the smallest gain took place in the Middle Atlantic division--2.9 percent.
Over the month of September, the East South Central division posted the greatest price increase--a 1.9 percent gain.
The Middle Atlantic and Mountain divisions both posted 0.1 percent declines--the only declines over the month.
Two divisions reported no price change--the New England and the West North Central divisions.