Freddie Mac House Price Index Declines for 7th Consecutive Month in December

36 States have seen price declines Seasonally Adjusted

Note: This is a repeat sales index using only loans purchased by Fannie and Freddie and includes appraisals. See FAQs here. Freddie has data for all states and many cities. (hat tip Tom Lawler). For house prices, I’m currently following Case-Shiller, FHFA, CoreLogic, Black Knight, the NAR median prices, and this Freddie Mac index.

Freddie Mac recently reported that its “National” Home Price Index (FMHPI) declined for the seventh consecutive month on a seasonally adjusted basis in December, putting the National FNHPI down 2.5% from its May 2022 peak, and down 5.0% Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA) from the peak.

On a year-over-year basis, the National FMHPI was up 4.1% in December, down from 6.0% YoY in November.  The YoY increase peaked at 19.3% in July 2021.

The second graph shows the month-over-month change in the national FMHPI, seasonally adjusted. The index has declined MoM for seven consecutive months.

In December, 36 states and D.C. were below their 2022 peaks in December, Seasonally Adjusted. The largest seasonally adjusted declines from the recent peak were in Arizona (-8.5%), Idaho (-7.2%), Nevada (-6.8%), Washington (-6.7%), California (-6.3%), Utah (-5.4%), and Colorado (-5.2%).

A key advantage of the FMHPI is it is released earlier than the Case-Shiller index. The recent Case-Shiller release was for November and is a three-month average of closed sales in September, October and November - and this could include contracts signed in July. The FMHPI is for December and includes closed sales and appraisals in December.

Here is a graph comparing the year-over-year change in the Case-Shiller and FMHPI.

Based on the recent trend, this index will be negative year-over-year in March.