U.S. house prices rose 0.9% on a seasonally adjusted basis in the second quarter, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) seasonally adjusted purchase-only house price index (HPI). The HPI is calculated using home sales price information from Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-acquired mortgages. The unadjusted national increase was 2.6%.
Over the past year, seasonally adjusted prices fell 1.6% from the second quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2010, the FHFA reports.
The agency's seasonally adjusted monthly index for June was down 0.3% from its May value, offsetting some of the price increases in the prior months. The monthly increase for the April-to-May period was revised downward to 0.4%, from an initial estimate of 0.5%.
While the national, purchase-only HPI fell 1.6% from the second quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2010, prices of other goods and services rose 3% over the same period, the agency says. Accordingly, the inflation-adjusted price of homes fell approximately 4.4% over the latest year.
FHFA's all-transactions HPI, which includes data from mortgages used for both home purchases and refinancings, fell over the latest quarter. The index declined 0.5% in the latest quarter and 4.9% over the four-quarter period.
SOURCE: Federal Housing Finance Agency