Home Prices Grow In February Ahead Of Pandemic

Home prices in the United States rose 0.7 percent in February over the previous month – and 5.7 percent over a year earlier, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced Wednesday.

“U.S. house prices posted a strong increase in February,” said Dr. Lynn Fisher, Deputy Director of the Division of Research and Statistics at FHFA. “The growth in home prices coincides with other data showing robust housing market activity in early 2020 preceding the current crisis.  House prices had positive monthly gains in every census division. Transactions still do not reflect much, if any, influence from the COVID-19 outbreak as of February.” 

Seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from January 2020 to February 2020 were up in all nine census divisions of the country. The increases ranging from 0.3 percent in the West South Central division to 1.2 percent in the Middle Atlantic division. The 12-month changes were all positive as well, ranging from 4.2 percent in the West South Central division to 8.1 percent in the Mountain division.