Platform · Glossary
FHFA HPI — House Price Index.
A repeat-sale price index published by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. It tracks price changes by following the same properties through multiple transactions and computing average movement between sale pairs.
Why repeat-sale matters
Median sale price changes (the simplest measure of appreciation) can move because the mix of houses being sold changed, not because prices changed. A neighborhood whose median sale jumps from $300K to $400K may be appreciating, or it may just be selling more 4-bedroom houses this quarter. Repeat-sale indices control for that mix shift by looking only at the same houses over time — different transactions of the same property.
The FHFA HPI uses Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac transaction data, which covers the majority of conforming-loan home sales in the U.S.
What 3Y uses it for
Long-horizon price growth at metro and state level. The 3Y benchmark for home price growth is sourced from FHFA HPI where the geography has enough sample density; tracts and smaller areas fall back to median-price changes with explicit caveats. Home price growth feeds the location score's housing-market category and the exit-strategy projections in the report.