Fort Smith, AR-OK Federal Housing Finance Agency Home Price Index (FHFA HPI)

The Fort Smith, AR-OK, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI) is a weighted, repeat-sales index measuring average price changes in single-family houses in the metropolitan statistical area (MSA). The HPI value for any given quarter is equal to 100 if the average house price during that quarter was equal to the price of the typical house during the base period of the index (the first quarter of 1991). A value greater than 100 indicates that the average house price during the given quarter was above the price of a typical house during the base period; conversely, a value below 100 indicates that it was below. The HPI is calculated using data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's conventional, conforming mortgage purchases.

Between 1991 and 2000, home prices in Fort Smith increased steadily, reaching a peak of 124.3 in early 2001. After a brief dip during 2001 and 2002 caused by the bursting of the dot-com bubble, prices began to rebound and continued to rise through 2007, when they peaked at 133.5. The subprime mortgage crisis hit Fort Smith hard, and home prices plummeted between 2007 and 2009 before beginning to recover slowly in 2010. As of 2019 Q1, home prices had recovered somewhat but were still below their pre-crisis peak levels; however, they remained well above their early 2000s levels.

The HPI for Fort Smith reached its all-time high in 2019 Q1 at 136.4; this represented an increase of 3% from 2018 Q4 and an increase of 10% from 2017 Q1. Home prices have been on an upward trend since bottoming out in 2009 Q2; however, they are still below their pre-crisis peak levels reached in 2007 Q3. Despite this overall upward trend since 2009Q2, there has been considerable volatility in quarterly changes over this time period: for example, home prices decreased by 2% between 2015 Q4 and 2016 Q1 before increasing again by 3% between 2016 Q2 and 2016 Q3.