Western U.S. Showing Strong Home Price Recovery in FHFA Report

Home prices have increased 4.7 percentrnover the past 12 months according to information released late Tuesday by thernFederal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). rnThe Agency’s House Price Index (HPI) for August was up 0.7 percent fromrnJuly but the original estimate for July was revised down from a 0.2 percentrnincrease to 0.1 percent.  Prices have nowrnreturned to the level of June 2004 and are 15.9 percent below the peak inrnprices reached in April 2007.</p

</p

Monthly pricernchanges varied widely across the nine census divisions, ranging from -0.5rnpercent in the East south Central division (Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama) which was the only division to post arnnegative change, to +3.0 in the Pacific division (Hawaii, Alaska, Washington,rnOregon, California).    </p

All nine divisions are positive for the year while in August 2011allrnwere down on an annual basis. Several divisions are showing dramaticrnincreases.  The Mountain divisionrn(Montana, Idaho,rnWyoming, Nevada,rnUtah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico) which was particularlyrnhard-hit by the housing crisis is now up 11.4 percent year-over-year and thernPacific division has increased by 8.1 percent. rn</p

</p

The HPI is derived from the purchasernprice of houses financed through loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae orrnFreddie Mac.

All Content Copyright © 2003 – 2009 Brown House Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.nReproduction in any form without permission of MortgageNewsDaily.com is prohibited.