The Housing Price Indexes – FHFA House Price Index
Formerly the OFHEO Index, it is now the FHFA, Federal Housing Finance Agency Index. While this index also uses resales of existing single family homes, there are some major differences in areas covered and methodology in data gathering. Let’s assume basically similar home types and the fact that resales of existing homes are used, let’s just look at the differences:
• While resales are used, the data comes not from county records but from records of federally-backed mortgage documents.
• In addition to resales, this index also uses refinance appraisals to the same home over time.
• FHFA equally weights all prices, no value weighting.
• FHFA gathers data from all states, including the 13 not covered by Case-Shiller.
• FHFA covers hundreds of cities as well.
If you’re wanting to drill down to data for a town or region not in the 20 cities covered by Case-Shiller, this is the index for you. At any given time, the two indexes may be reporting different views of the market due to the differences in how data is gathered and the calculations.
The important thing to remember is that these are great resources for an overall national picture of the current price trends, as well as more regional and city data if your area is covered.
Formerly the OFHEO Index, it is now the FHFA, Federal Housing Finance Agency Index. While this index also uses resales of existing single family homes, there are some major differences in areas covered and methodology in data gathering. Let’s assume basically similar home types and the fact that resales of existing homes are used, let’s just look at the differences:
• While resales are used, the data comes not from county records but from records of federally-backed mortgage documents.
• In addition to resales, this index also uses refinance appraisals to the same home over time.
• FHFA equally weights all prices, no value weighting.
• FHFA gathers data from all states, including the 13 not covered by Case-Shiller.
• FHFA covers hundreds of cities as well.
If you’re wanting to drill down to data for a town or region not in the 20 cities covered by Case-Shiller, this is the index for you. At any given time, the two indexes may be reporting different views of the market due to the differences in how data is gathered and the calculations.
The important thing to remember is that these are great resources for an overall national picture of the current price trends, as well as more regional and city data if your area is covered.