House prices up in first quarter

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has reported that U.S. house prices rose in the first quarter of 2020, up 1.7 percent according to the FHFA House Price Index (HPI). House prices rose 5.7 percent from the first quarter of 2019 to the first quarter of 2020. FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for March was up 0.1 percent from February.

• House prices have risen for 35 consecutive quarters, or since September 2011.
• House prices rose in 48 states and the District of Columbia between the first quarters of 2019 and 2020. The top five areas in annual appreciation were: 1) Idaho 12.6 percent; 2) Montana 10.2 percent; 3) Wyoming 9.9 percent; 4) Utah 9.0 percent; and 5) Hawaii 8.8 percent. The areas showing the lowest annual appreciation were: 1) West Virginia -2.1 percent; 2) Alaska -0.1 percent; 3) North Dakota 0.4 percent; 4) Illinois 2.5 percent; and 5) Connecticut 3.0 percent.
• House prices rose in all the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. over the last four quarters. Annual price increases were greatest in Boise City, ID, where prices increased by 13.1 percent. Prices were weakest in Lake County-Kenosha County, IL-WI (MSAD), where they increased by 0.4 percent.
• Of the nine census divisions, the Mountain division experienced the strongest four-quarter appreciation, posting an 8.0 percent gain between the first quarters of 2019 and 2020 and a 2.5 percent increase in the first quarter of 2020. Annual house price appreciation was weakest in the West South Central division, where prices rose by 4.3 percent between the first quarters of 2019 and 2020.

Trends in the Top 100 Metropolitan Statistical Areas are available through a newly-published interactive dashboard. The first tab displays rankings while the second tab offers charts.