House Prices Remain Stable in October

The slight upward trend observed in the FHFA house price index over the past six months has been mirrored by the Case-Shiller composite HPIs, confirming that house prices have stabilized.
Courtesy of NAHB

House prices with the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported a slight 0.2 percent (seasonally adjusted) decrease in the monthly purchase-only house price index (HPI). This follows a revised 0.4 percent increase in September. Despite some minor month-over-month variability, the index has exhibited a slight upward trend since April.

Across the regions, there was a modest gain in HPI for three of the nine Census divisions on a seasonally adjusted basis, but the other six divisions edged down.

A solid gain was observed in East South Central (+2 percent), while gains in the West North Central (+0.1 percent) and West South Central (+0.2 percent) were slight. Moderate declines of between 0.5 percent and 1 percent were observed in the other divisions (with the exception of Pacific, -0.1 percent).

While the general trend in October was to give back some of the gains from the previous month, overall the Census divisions have either shown modest improvement or remained flat since April.

Expect house prices to remain relatively flat, with no further significant declines, over the remainder of 2011. Anticipate steady, albeit modest, gains through 2012 and 2013.

– Courtesy of NAHB