Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Valley Home Prices Rise in 1st Quarter says FHFA Home Price Index

FHFA released it's home price index today. Here is the link to the report, tables with Valley metro areas in it are in the middle of the lengthy document.

According to the FHFA index, home prices increased in every Valley metro area in the 1st quarter of 2009 compared to the 4th quarter of 2008. Over the year, Valley metro areas still lead the nation in the size of declines, but it looks like Florida, Nevada and Arizona are now declining faster.

There is precious little in quality home price indexes for these small metro areas. The FHFA all-transactions index includes appraisal data, and many have questioned it's accuracy. The FHFA purchase-only index is only available for larger metro areas and for most of these the purchase-only index shows larger home price declines than the all-transactions index.

So, I wouldn't conclude from the FHFA index that real estate prices are now rising in the Valley. It does provide some more evidence for the point of view that the free fall is over, and prices are finally bottoming out.

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