Data through: Q2 2026 · updated Sep 4 · Updates: Quarterly · Next: Nov 24
QThe three bars show the last 3 quarters for this indicator, oldest left to newest right. Bar height reflects each reading relative to the other two — the tallest is the highest of the three, the shortest the lowest.
Historical context: Currently in the 24th percentile historically — near historically low levels.
What this means right now: Appreciation between 2.5% and 4.6% is in the second quintile — slow price growth, as, against today's bands, through 1989–97, in 2013, 2019–20 and again in 2025–26.
FHFA House Price Index (4-Quarter Change) · Quarterly · 1976–2026
NBER recessions
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Monthly values
FHFA House Price Index (4-Quarter Change) — the last 8 quarters
Every quarter's reading, with the band the heatmap gives it. The chart above shows the same series in full.
Quarter
Value
Band
Q2 2026
+3.0% YoY
Concerning reading
Q1 2026
+3.5% YoY
Concerning reading
Q4 2025
+3.5% YoY
Concerning reading
Q3 2025
+3.4% YoY
Concerning reading
Q2 2025
+3.8% YoY
Concerning reading
Q1 2025
+4.7% YoY
Concerning reading
Quarter-end readings of the same series the chart shows, from fhfa_hpi. Values are the current record, not point-in-time: a month that has since been revised shows its revised value.
What is the Home Prices (FHFA)?
This indicator shows the four-quarter percent change in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's All-Transactions House Price Index. That is a repeat-sales index built from mortgage transactions and appraisals on single-family homes with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans, national, quarterly, since 1975. The heatmap cell and the Housing Cycle vote use the four-quarter change; the underlying index level (1980 Q1 = 100) is stored alongside it.
House prices are the sector's lagging stage by the Housing Cycle charter's ruling: the feature places this series 9 months after single-family starts (correlation 0.4 at that lag). The fit is loose. At turning points price growth has followed starts by up to 18 months (1979, 1982, 2022) and turned with or a quarter before them at others (1987, 1990, 2005, 2008). The charter admits prices as voters by a stated exception to the site's rule against market prices in a census. The ground is that a house price index measures the sector's own transactions rather than a traded market's expectations. The latest vote is improving, for 2026-04.
Why FHFA rather than Case-Shiller: the FHFA index has the longest free history (1975 versus 1987), is public domain, and is timelier by a month. The Case-Shiller index already on the heatmap (shown as Home Prices, year over year) remains the cross-check. The two agree on whether prices are up or down on the year in 95% of the 154 quarters both cover. They differ mainly in coverage: Case-Shiller includes non-conforming loans and weights by value. The four-quarter change is used rather than the quarterly change because the FHFA index is not seasonally adjusted and a one-quarter change carries the spring season.
How We Color-Code the Home Prices (FHFA)
Our heatmap colors this indicator against historically significant thresholds:
Below 2.5%
Bottom quintile — flat or falling prices
2.5% – 4.6%
Second quintile — slow appreciation
4.6% – 5.4%
Middle quintile — around the series' median growth
5.4% – 7.4%
Fourth quintile — strong appreciation
Above 7.4%
Top quintile of the 1976–2026 history — boom-rate appreciation
Historical Extremes — What Happened Next?
When this indicator reaches extreme levels, history shows consistent patterns:
2022 Q2Pandemic price surge
+20.4%
The fastest four-quarter appreciation on record. Growth fell to about +5% within two years as mortgage rates doubled, and reached +3% only in 2026.
2008 Q4Financial-crisis decline
−7.2%
The deepest four-quarter fall in the index's history (Q4 2008); prices did not regain their 2007 level until 2016
2005 Q2Housing bubble peak growth
+11.9%
Appreciation peaked in 2005 Q2, a quarter before single-family starts, and turned negative in 2007 Q4.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why FHFA instead of Case-Shiller?
History, license and timing. The FHFA index runs from 1975 (Case-Shiller from 1987), is public domain (Case-Shiller is S&P Cotality's copyright, reprinted on FRED with permission), and publishes about a month sooner. Case-Shiller stays on the heatmap as the cross-check; the two agree on whether prices are up or down on the year in 95% of the 154 quarters both cover.
Why the four-quarter change and not the quarterly change?
The all-transactions index is not seasonally adjusted, so a single quarter's change carries the spring buying season. The four-quarter change compares like with like. It is also the change the Housing Cycle's price vote uses.
How are the color thresholds set?
By a five-band quintile rule: the 20th, 40th, 60th and 80th percentiles of the series' own four-quarter-change history, rounded to a tenth of a percent. Today's color reads against the whole history, 1976 to today: the edges now are 2.5%, 4.6%, 5.4% and 7.4%. A past quarter's color — in the Time Machine and in the monthly table — reads against the history up to that quarter, as it would have read then, so the edges move a little as data arrives. A color exists once the series has ten years of history (here from 1986). Nothing is tuned to the current reading. Note that the middle band is narrow — house price growth clusters near 5% a year over the long run — so on today's bands a reading of 3% falls in the second quintile even though it is positive.
Why do house prices vote in the Housing Cycle when the site keeps market prices out of its Economic Breadth census?
By a stated exception in the Housing Cycle charter: a house price index measures the sector's own transactions — what buyers paid for houses — not a traded market's pricing of expectations. The exception admits prices only as the lagging stage, and the charter records it as an exception rather than a change to the site's rule.