House Price Appreciation Slows

House Price Appreciation Slows

U.S. home prices continued to rise in the second quarter of this year, but the rate of increase fell sharply, according to the House Price Index released recently by the Offfice of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

While home prices were 10.06 percent higher in the second quarter than they were a year earlier, the apprecation rate of 1.17 for the most recent quarter reflects a sharp decline of more than one percentage point from the first quarter of 2006 and is the lowest rate of appreciation since the fourth quarter of 1999. The decline in the quarterly rate over the past year is the sharpest since the beginning of OFHEO's House Price Index in 1975.

Other interesting House Price Appreciation findings: