Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased Slightly in May; Up 0.4% Year-over-year

Boise leads Cities with 11.4% decline from Peak, 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. For house prices, I’m currently following Case-Shiller, FHFA, CoreLogic, Black Knight, the NAR median prices, and this Freddie Mac index.

Freddie Mac reported that its “National” Home Price Index (FMHPI) increased 0.5% month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis in May, putting the National FMHPI down slightly SA from its June 2022 peak, and up 0.3% Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA) from the previous peak in June 2022.

On a year-over-year basis, the National FMHPI was up 0.4% in May, from up 0.7% YoY in April.  The YoY increase peaked at 19.2% in July 2021.

The second graph shows the month-over-month change in the national FMHPI, seasonally adjusted. The index has increased for five consecutive months after declining MoM for six consecutive months.

15 States and D.C. have seen price declines Seasonally Adjusted

In May, 15 states and D.C. were below their 2022 peaks, Seasonally Adjusted. The largest seasonally adjusted declines from the recent peak were in D.C. (-9.1%), Idaho (-7.2%), Nevada (-7.1%), Hawaii (-5.5%), Arizona (-5.2%), Utah (-4.9%), Washington (-4.3%), California (-3.7%), Oregon (-3.6%) and Wyoming (-5.0%).

For cities (Core-based Statistical Areas, CBSA), here are the 30 cities with the largest declines from the peak, seasonally adjusted.

Here is a comparison of year-over-year change in the FMHPI, median house prices from the NAR, and the Case-Shiller National index.

The FMHPI and the NAR median prices appear to be leading indicators for Case-Shiller. The median price was down YoY in May, and the FMHPI was up slightly YoY in May. The Case-Shiller index was down 0.2% YoY in April.

The FMHPI is suggesting the YoY change in the Case-Shiller index will be close to unchanged for the next couple of months.

The big question is “Will house prices decline further later this year?” And I’ll post some thoughts on this next week.