Three Measures of Home Prices, Three Different Answers (2026)
The FHFA publishes several house-price indexes, and they disagree. Why the home-price number you see depends on the ruler.
Key findings
- There is no single home-price number. As of Q2 2026, the three FHFA indexes put U.S. year-over-year growth between +2.1% and +3.0%, a spread of 0.9 percentage points depending on which measure you use.
- The All-transactions index showed the fastest growth (+3.0%) and the Purchase-only index the slowest (+2.1%).
- The differences come from what each index counts: purchase-only uses only sale transactions, while all-transactions and expanded-data also fold in refinance appraisals and additional records, which smooth the series.
- All three are index percent changes on repeat valuations, not dollar prices, so the lesson is to check the ruler before quoting a home-price number.
When a headline says home prices rose by some percent, the figure depends on which index it came from. The FHFA publishes several. This compares the three main ones for the United States: purchase-only (sales only), all-transactions (sales plus refinance appraisals), and expanded-data (a broader set of records). For the same country and the same period, they disagree by more than a percentage point, and they disagree even more over the long run. An index tracks price change relative to a base period, not dollar price levels.
U.S. year-over-year by measure, Q2 2026
Year-over-year growth by measure
| Category | Year-over-year change |
|---|---|
| Purchase-only | 2.09% |
| All-transactions | 3.03% |
| Expanded-data | 2.45% |
The three measures
| Index measure | Year-over-year | Since 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase-only | +2.1% | +60% |
| All-transactions | +3.0% | +60% |
| Expanded-data | +2.5% | +60% |
FHFA quarterly indexes for the United States, year-over-year and cumulative since early 2020 (not seasonally adjusted). Index percent change, not dollar prices.
Data Sources & Methodology
The figures on this page are computed directly from the source data below. Narrative text accompanies the figures but never generates them.
FHFA House Price Index (HPI)
- Publisher:
- Federal Housing Finance Agency
- Vintage:
- 2026
- Access:
- BigQuery
- Cadence:
- monthly
The Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index measures changes in single-family home values using a repeat-sales method on mortgages acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The master file carries every published series: monthly indexes for the nation and the nine Census divisions, and quarterly indexes for states and metropolitan areas, in multiple index types, back to the 1970s.
The HPI is a weighted repeat-sales index: it tracks price changes on the same homes over time using mortgage transactions acquired or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Values are index levels relative to a base period, not dollar prices.
Monthly indexes are published for the United States and the nine Census divisions; state and metropolitan-area indexes are quarterly. Both seasonally adjusted and not-seasonally-adjusted series are provided.
Price growth is computed as the percent change in the index between two periods. Because it is an index, comparisons are about rate of change, not absolute price levels between places.
- The purchase-only and standard indexes cover only homes with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgages, so cash sales and homes financed outside the enterprises are not included.
- It is an index of price change, not a measure of dollar price levels, so two places with the same index are not equally expensive.
- Monthly detail exists only for the nation and Census divisions; state and metro series are quarterly.
- Recent periods can be revised as more transactions are reported.
How these figures were produced
- Estimate type:
- Repeat-sales price index (not a count or dollar level)
- Weighting:
- Repeat-sales weighting of enterprise-acquired mortgages
Suggested citation
Federal Housing Finance Agency, House Price Index, 2026. Analysis by Matt George, itsmattgeorge.com. Retrieved 2026-10-24.