If you're hunkered down in California or Colorado, this chart of U.S. home prices might just make your day. If you're house-hunting there, it might spoil it.
That's because home-price gains in the U.S. in January, which surged past expectations, were driven by huge increases in the West and Southwest as listings grew scarce, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said in a statement Thursday.
While prices nationwide jumped 7.3% from a year earlier, they were up 10% in the Mountain region, including Colorado, Nevada and Arizona. The Pacific area, which includes California, Washington and Oregon, rose 9.4%. Even where growth was less dramatic, gains accelerated. In New England, for example, prices were up 7.1% from January 2017. Back then, they were up only 4.6% from a year earlier.
The month-to-month increase was hefty as well. U.S. home prices rose 0.8% from December, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the FHFA said. That's twice the 0.4% average estimate of 11 economists.
The FHFA index measures transactions for single-family properties financed with mortgages owned or securitized by the government-sponsored companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The U.S. housing market — and the hapless buyers in it — are suffering from a supply crunch, partly because builders haven't kept up with demand and many seniors are choosing to stay in their homes rather than downsize. It could get even harder to buy. Mortgage interest, currently averaging 4.4% for a 30-year fixed-rate loan, will keep rising, according to Freddie Mac, which released its monthly outlook for March on Thursday and forecast a jump to 4.9% in the fourth quarter.
Freddie sees home prices rising 5.1% this year. They're up 37% since the recession, according to the report.
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