• The government price index put out by FHFA that uses Fannie and Freddie loan data on home purchases showed that prices were roughly steady from the 3rd to 4th quarters nationally, slipping only 0.1 percent.  From the 4th quarter of 2010, prices were down 2.4 percent.
  • Monthly data from the same source showed that prices were up 0.7 percent in December.
  • The map above shows price changes by state from the 4th quarter of 2010 to the 4th quarter of 2011.  Twelve states plus DC had price growth in this period.  The map shows that many of these states were concentrated in the central plains.
  • The metro area with the greatest year over year price growth was Bismarck, ND.  Other metro areas in the top 20 were spread across the country from Wyoming to Pennsylvania.
  • One other notable observation, the FHFA house price index does NOT exclude distressed properties from evaluation.  Other research has shown that distressed properties typically sell at a discount, and data series that attempt to exclude distressed sales tend to show better price performance.
  • Identifiably distressed properties are an estimated 7 to 13 percent of the FHFA sample.  Thus, non-distressed properties may see even stronger price performance than reported by the FHFA index.
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