The FHFA’s House Price Index was released this morning, and as expected, housing prices declined from June to July, falling 0.5 percent. The June numbers were revised from a decline of 0.3 percent to a decline of 1.2 percent. The report states that ''the unusually large revision mainly reflects the addition of new data from late June that show considerably weaker prices than earlier in the month''.
The price decline can be attributed to an oversupply of houses coupled with anemic demand and continued high unemployment.
For the 12 month period July 2009-2010, housing prices dropped 3.3 percent. The FHFA index is now 13.8 percent below its peak, which occurred in April 2007. Prices declined most precipitously in the Mountain region (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico), falling 1.5 percent last month and 7.3 percent over the past year.
The only regions posting positive growth last month were the Pacific and Middle Atlantic regions, seeing price increases of 1.1 and 0.2 percent respectively. No region is showing growth in housing prices over the last 12 months.
