FHFA House Price Index: Up 0.9% in June

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released its U.S. House Price Index (HPI) for June. Here is the opening of the press release:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. house prices rose 5.4 percent from the second quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2020 according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI). House prices were up 0.8 percent in the second quarter of 2019. FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for June was up 0.9 percent from May.

“Home prices grew by 5.4 percent in the second quarter of 2020 compared to a year ago, despite the impacts of COVID-19.” said Dr. Lynn Fisher, Deputy Director of the Division of Research and Statistics at FHFA. “Although house prices fell slightly in May relative to April, in June prices rebounded by 0.9 percent over the month as local economies re-opened and transactions picked up again. Four Census Divisions showed strong early summer gains with month-over-month growth of one percent or more in June.”

The chart below illustrates the monthly HPI series, which is not adjusted for inflation, along with a real (inflation-adjusted) series using the Consumer Price Index: All Items Less Shelter.

In the chart above we see that the nominal HPI index has exceeded its pre-recession peak of what's generally regarded to have been a housing bubble. Adjusted for inflation, the index is now at 164.0.

The next chart shows the growth of the nominal and real index since the turn of the century.

For an interesting comparison, let's overlay the HPI and the most closely matching subcomponent of the Consumer Price Index, Owners' Equivalent Rent of Residences (OER). Note: For an explanation of OER, see this PDF commentary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

HPI and OER moved in close parallel from the 1991 inception date of the former until early 1999, when the two parted company and HPI began accelerating into the housing bubble. HPI then fell 20.7% over the next 48 months to its March 2007 trough. Confirmation of the "bubble" designation for house prices is the 40.1% spread between HPI and OER in January 2006.

Is another housing bubble forming? The current spread is 28.3%.

Here we compare the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers to both the Nominal and Real House Price Index, which is a similar comparison to what we do in our Case-Shiller update. Nominal HPI growth has clearly taken off since 2012. However, when adjusted for inflation, the House Price Index has not seen as dramatic an increase since the late 1990s.