by Calculated Risk on 10/15/2012 10:57:00 AM

In addition to Case-Shiller, CoreLogic, and LPS, I'm also watching the FNC, Zillow and several other house price indexes.

FNC released their August index data today. FNC reported that their Residential Price Index™ (RPI) indicates that U.S. residential property values increased 0.3% in August compared to July (Composite 100 index). The other RPIs (10-MSA, 20-MSA, 30-MSA) increased between 0.5% and 0.8% in August. These indexes are not seasonally adjusted (NSA), and are for non-distressed home sales (excluding foreclosure auction sales, REO sales, and short sales).

Since this index is NSA, the month-to-month changes will probably turn negative in September or October. The key then will be to watch the year-over-year change and also to compare the month-to-month change to previous years. This was the first month-to-month increase for the month of August since 2005.

The year-over-year trends continued to show improvement in August, with the 100-MSA composite up 1.5% compared to August 2011. The FNC index turned positive on a year-over-year basis last month - that was the first year-over-year increase in the FNC index since year-over-year prices started declining in early 2007 (over five years ago).

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph is based on the FNC index (four composites) through August 2012. The FNC indexes are hedonic price indexes using a blend of sold homes and real-time appraisals.

Some of the month-to-month gain is seasonal since this index is NSA. The key is the indexes are now showing a year-over-year increase.

The August Case-Shiller index will be released in two weeks, on Tuesday, October 30th.