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The rise in home prices continues

For the week ending August 19, the Market Composite Index decreased 2.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis and decreased three percent on an unadjusted basis for the week compared to one week earlier.

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The FHFA house price index is first at 1300 GMT and expected to rise 0.3% in June. “Our monthly price index indicates that in each of the three months of the quarter, the increase was only 0.2%”. The HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages sold to, or guaranteed by, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In terms of seasonal adjustments, the USA (purchase only) house price index now sits at 230.98 for the second quarter of 2016, with the January 1991 rate of 100 used as a benchmark.

House prices show signs of slowing The rise in United States house prices rose in the second quarter of 2016 but gains in each month were at a slower pace.

However, FHFA Supervisory Economist Andrew Leventis says that although the quarterly data is in line with that of recent years, it also reveals a change.

Although the HPI was up 5.6% from the second quarter of 2015, prices of other goods and services were almost unchanged. The inflation-adjusted price of homes rose approximately 5.7 percent over the previous year. “This is a much more modest pace of appreciation than we’ve seen in some time and most likely reflects accumulated pressures from significantly reduced home affordability”.

Tight inventory and rising prices have narrowed the affordability of houses to US home buyers, which made the existing home sales fall in July after rising for four months, said the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on Wednesday.

The largest increases were recorded in the Northwest and West with prices up 11.7% in OR, 10.3% in Washington, 10.2% in Colorado and 9.6% in Nevada. Prices were weakest in Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Conn., where they fell 3.3%. All divisions showed increased prices through the year with their weakest reading at 1.8% in New England and their strongest reading at 8.6% in the mountain region.

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Prices in the second quarter rose from a year earlier in every state except Vermont, which had a 0.4 percent decline, the FHFA said.

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