by Calculated Risk on 5/31/2007 11:07:00 AM

From OFHEO: U.S. House Price Apprecation Rate Remains Slow, but Positive

The rate of home price appreciation in the U.S. remained slow but positive in the first quarter of 2007. The OFHEO House Price Index (HPI), which is based on data from sales and refinance transactions, was 0.5 percent higher in the first quarter than in the fourth quarter of 2006. This is moderately below the revised growth estimate of 1.3 percent from the third to the fourth quarter of 2006. Prices in the first quarter of 2007 were 4.3 percent higher than they were in the same quarter in 2006.

OFHEO’s purchase-only index, which is based solely on purchase price data, indicates less price appreciation for U.S. houses than the HPI does over the past year. The purchase-only index increased 3.0 percent between the first quarter of 2006 and the first quarter of 2007, compared with 4.3 percent for the HPI.

The underlying purchase-only and a seasonally-adjusted purchase-only U.S. index can be downloaded here.

Purchase-only indexes (both seasonally-adjusted and not-seasonally adjusted) are now also available for every Census Division and are downloadable here.

Purchase-only indexes are available for each state here.