Home prices rose 0.3 percent nationwide in January and 5.2 percent year-over-year, according to the latest data by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released on Wednesday.
“U.S. house prices continued to increase at a moderate pace in January,” Dr. Lynn Fisher, Deputy Director of the Division of Research and Statistics at FHFA, said in a statement. “Transactions in January were unlikely to reflect much, if any, influence from the COVID-19 outbreak. House prices in the Pacific and South Atlantic regions grew somewhat faster over the year ending in January 2020 than observed the same time a year ago.”
Regionally, the price growth varied somewhat — the South Atlantic Division saw the biggest gains at 0.7 percent while the Mountain and West North Central regions saw their home prices drop by 0.2 and 0.1 percent, respectively. When looked at year-over-year, all regions saw increases. The Middle Atlantic region, in particular, saw the biggest spike at 6.4 percent.
The FHFA home price index measures changes in single-family home prices, using a weighted, repeat-sales statistical technique to analyze transaction data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.