• House price advance doubles in 2021.

• Strength is broad regionally.

• December's price gain is led by New England.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index increased 1.2% (17.6% y/y) during December after a 1.2% November rise, revised from 1.1%. During all of 2021, house prices rose a record 16.8%, following a 7.9% increase in 2020. The home price series dates back to January 1991.

December-to-December, price gains were led by the Mountain region (23.2% y/y), South Atlantic states (20.6% y/y) and the Pacific (19.4% y/y) regions.

Not far behind were gains in the East South Central (18.5% y/y), West South Central (17.9% y/y) regions and New England (16.5% y/y).

Hefty price gains occurred last year also in the East North Central (14.1% y/y), West North Central (13.9% y/y) and Middle Atlantic (13.4% y/y) regions of the country.

The FHFA house price index is a weighted purchase-only index that measures average price changes in repeat sales of the same property. An associated quarterly index includes refinancings on the same kinds of properties. The indexes are 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.

The FHFA data are available in Haver's USECON database.