U.S. house prices rose in February, up 0.7% from the previous month, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI) out Wednesday.
House prices rose 5.7% from February 2019 to February 2020. The previously reported 0.3% increase for January 2020 was revised upward to 0.5%.
For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from January 2020 to February 2020 were all positive, ranging from 0.3% in the West South Central division to +1.2% in the Middle Atlantic division. The 12-month changes were all positive, ranging from +4.2% in the West South Central division to +8.1% in the Mountain division.
“U.S. house prices posted a strong increase in February,” according to Dr. Lynn Fisher, deputy director of the division of research and statistics at FHFA. “The growth in home prices coincides with other data showing robust housing market activity in early 2020 preceding the current crisis. House prices had positive monthly gains in every census division. Transactions still do not reflect much, if any, influence from the COVID-19 outbreak as of February.”
