Home Price Index

Formerly called the OFHEO House Price Index, the FHFA House Price Index (HPI) is published by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) using data provided by the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). FHFA was established on July 30, 2008 in order to integrate the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the Federal Housing Finance Board, and HUD.

It is a broad measure of the movement of existing single-family house prices and serves as a timely, accurate indicator of house price trends at various geographic levels. The HPI is a weighted repeat sales index, meaning that it measures average price changes in repeat sales or refinancings on the same properties. It is based on transactions involving conforming, conventional mortgages purchased or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Only mortgage transactions on single-family properties are included.

"Conforming" refers to a mortgage that both meets the underwriting guidelines of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and that does not exceed the conforming loan limit, a figure linked to an index published by the Federal Housing Financial Board. "Conventional" means that the mortgages are neither insured nor guaranteed by the FHA, VA or other federal government entity.

FHFA publishes the HPI quarterly for the United States, Census Divisions, states, and metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). In addition, FHFA publishes a quarterly index of purchase-only transactions (not including refinancings), but not for MSAs. The HPI is indexed to the first quarter of 1980 (the first quarter of 1995 for MSAs).

Source

Federal Housing Finance Agency
http://www.fhfa.gov