Home Price Index

As far as economic reports go, it's another thin day - with one interesting and relatively new report to be aware of. At 10:00am ET, the Federal Housing Finance Agency released their "Housing Price Index" for the month of July. This report is a broad measure of single family home prices, and it includes data gained from both purchases and refinances that have taken place with Fannie or Freddie securitized loans since 1975. While this is not a new report, it has never gotten much attention…but with many eyes watching the health of the housing sector, it is starting to garner some interest. The Home Price Index showed that home prices on a national level declined by 4.2% in the past year, but rose by 0.3% from June to July. This is somewhat comforting, as it is pretty close to what the other reports have been telling us about the housing market.