FHFA: Home Prices Rise in Three Florida Metros

WASHINGTON – Three Florida metro areas saw a more than 10% increase in home prices between the first quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI), which tracks all U.S. mortgages under government-sponsored enterprises, notably Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach (14% increase in year-over-year prices); Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall (11.7%); and Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise (10.5%) ranked 3rd, 8th and 12th respective in the FHFA HPI Top 100 Metro Area Rankings. 

In the quarter-over-quarter pricing, the areas saw the following changes:

• West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach: 2.8% increase
• Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall: 2.6% increase
• Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Sunrise: 2.4% increase

At the same time, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater saw a 6.9% YoY change, but a -0.4% QoQ drop, making it 51st in the FHFA HPI’s ranking. The Jacksonville metro area saw a 6.4% YoY and 1.5% QoQ change, putting it at 58th in the FHFA HPI’s ranking. Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford saw a 5.2% YoY change and a -0.5 QoQ decline, putting it 72nd on the ranking.

Overall, U.S. house prices rose 6.6% between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024, the FHFA HPI found.

House prices across the nation were up 1.1% compared to Q4 2023. FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for March was up 0.1% from February.

“U.S. house prices continued to grow at a steady pace in the first quarter,” said Dr. Anju Vajja, deputy director for FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics. “Over the last six consecutive quarters, the low inventory of homes for sale continued to contribute to house price appreciation despite mortgage rates that hovered around 7%.”

The five states with the highest annual appreciation were 1) Vermont, 12.8%; 2) New Jersey, 11.6%; 3) New York, 10.9%; 4) Delaware, 10.7% ; and 5) Wisconsin, 9.9%. District of Columbia had a decline of -1.5%.

House prices rose in 97 of the top 100 largest metropolitan areas over the last four quarters. The annual price increase was the greatest in Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ at 16.0%. The metropolitan area that experienced the most significant price decline was Urban Honolulu, HI at -3.2%.

All nine census divisions had positive house price changes year-over-year. The Middle Atlantic division recorded the strongest appreciation, posting a 9.9% increase from the first quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024. The West South Central division recorded the smallest four-quarter appreciation, at 3.7%.

The FHFA HPI is a comprehensive collection of publicly available house price indexes that measure changes in single-family home values based on data that extend back to the mid-1970s from all 50 states and over 400 American cities. It incorporates tens of millions of home sales and offers insights about house price fluctuations at the national, census division, state, metro area, county, ZIP code, and census tract levels. FHFA uses a fully transparent methodology based upon a weighted, repeat-sales statistical technique to analyze house price transaction data.

FHFA releases HPI data and reports quarterly and monthly. The flagship FHFA HPI uses seasonally adjusted, purchase-only data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Additional indexes use other data, including refinances, Federal Housing Administration mortgages and real property records. 

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